Did Hamas capture two Saudi soldiers allegedly fighting alongside the Israeli Defense Forces in the Gaza ground offensive, as claimed by many on TikTok? No, that's not true: The video is from 2017 and features two Saudi soldiers who were captured by the Houthis in Yemen.
The claim appeared in a video that's no longer available but is archived here. It was published on TikTok by @palestinienfree on October 28, 2023, with a text overlay (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff) that reads:
The Palestinian Resistance [Hamas] captures Saudi soldiers, who were captured during the ground offensive on Gaza. They were with the Israeli army.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Nov 14 11:09:07 2023 UTC)
The claim on TikTok was widely shared following Israel's ground offensive in Gaza in October 2023, such as here, here and here.
Lead Stories conducted a Google reverse image search (archived here) on November 14, 2023, on the man in the video. The results uncovered an article from the Iranian news website BasijNews, published on September 23, 2017, with the headline (translated from Persian into English by Lead Stories staff): "Photo/ The Faces of the Saudi Captives Published." Within the article, a caption (translated from Persian into English by Lead Stories staff), reads:
News sources affiliated with Yemen's Ansarullah movement have released images of new captives from the Saudi Arabian army. These individuals were captured in the course of an attack on a Saudi military base in the Jizan province in southern Saudi Arabia.
(Source: BasijNews screenshot taken on Wed Nov 15 10:21:28 2023 UTC)
In the report, the men were identified as Abdullah Ali Al-Shili and Thi'ar Mutlaq Al-Otaybi. Lead Stories found the complete version of the video, published on YouTube by Masa Press on September 22, 2017, after doing a Google search (archived here) for the two names in Arabic. The title of the video (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff) was:
Video: The Houthis Capture Saudi Soldiers... And This Is Their Confessions.
(Source: YouTube screenshot taken on Wed Nov 15 10:44:11 2023 UTC)
The caption of the video (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff) reads:
Al-Masa Press - Exclusive/ Today, the military media associated with the Sana'a forces has published video clips featuring the confessions of two Saudi soldiers who were apprehended in Tabet Raad on the Najran front two days ago. The first individual is Soldier Thi'ar Mutlaq Al-Otaybi, and the second is Sergeant Abdullah Ali Al-Shili.
According to a report published on September 22, 2017, by Alaraby, an Arabic news website headquartered in London (translated from Arabic to English by Lead Stories staff) with the headline: "Civilians killed in coalition raid.. And the Houthis announce the capture of two Saudi soldiers," the video of the two Saudi soldiers was initially aired on Al-Masirah, a Yemeni TV news outlet run by the Houthis movement.
