Spanish bull festival celebration falsely shared as 'protest against Gaza situation'

A video of a crowd celebrating the opening of Spain's famous bullfighting spectacle has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times in posts that falsely claimed it shows a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza. Although there were media reports that a small number of revellers raised the Palestinian flag, the annual event in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona is unrelated to the Israel-Gaza war.

"Thousands of Spanish people show their solidarity for Palestine. Masya Allah, amazing support!" read the Indonesian caption of the TikTok post published on July 30, 2024.

The 25-second video -- viewed hundreds of thousands of times -- shows a crowd of people chanting and jumping on a street.

Large crowds have gathered across the world to protest Israel's war on Hamas, which has killed at least 40,173 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry of the Hamas-run territory (archived link).

The war was triggered by the Palestinian militant group's deadly October 7 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

The same video was shared with a similar false claim elsewhere on Facebook and X.

Comments on the posts indicated some users were misled to believe it showed a pro-Palestinian protest in Spain.

"Thank you Spain...may god bless you all...," one wrote.

"Very nice of Spain," said another.

However, the video is unrelated to the Israel-Gaza war.

Bull festival

Reverse image searches on Google using keyframes from the video found the same clip was shared on July 7, 2024 on the social networking site Threads by a user with the handle "spainwayoflife".

The caption reads: "San Fermín 2024 Open Ceremony".