No, CNN didn’t stage an attack near the Israel-Gaza border

A video of CNN journalists reporting from near the Israel-Gaza border has spread on social media as evidence the network staged an attack there for viewers. 

"CNN busted faking attack in Israel for the camera!" reads the text in a screenshot of an Oct. 10 X post from The Quartering, which describes itself on X as a "news & content organization." 

The post’s video shows a camera following a CNN team, including the network’s chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward, running and taking shelter on a roadside.

"OK, Jerry, tell the cameraman to keep Clarissa in shot," a narrator can be heard saying. "It’s not ‘The Blair Witch Project.’"

"Look around, Jerry, look around as if you’re in danger," the voice later says. "Try to look nice and scared, yeah, that’s it, catching your breath. … OK, that’s beautiful, that’s the money shot."  

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on April 14, 2024 in a post

“Not even one rocket (from Iran) hit Israel.”

And still later: "Can you boost the volume on those explosions please?"

Instagram posts sharing this video were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The audio is fake. 

It doesn’t appear in the original Oct. 9 broadcast, which CNN described on its site as showing Ward and her team taking shelter from rockets near the Israel-Gaza border. Instead, the voice of CNN anchor Kate Bolduan can be heard describing what’s happening in the footage. 

The Quartering said on X that "of course the voice over isn’t real." 

We rate claims that it is, and evidence of CNN staging an attack, False.