ISLAMABAD – A viral video doing rounds online as footage of Houthi drone attack over Makkah has been debunked as old incident in Madinah which occured more than a year back.
The clip being shared on Facebook, X, and other portals shows a missile through the night sky near a mosque and it spread rapidly across social media, with posts claiming it captured Saudi air defenses intercepting a Houthi drone over Makkah.
🚨 FACT CHECK
A video being circulated today as footage of an attack on Madinah, Saudi Arabia is actually from September 2025.
It has no connection to any incident today. The video is old and is being misleadingly presented as new. pic.twitter.com/PGihEyyy8E
— Expose Propaganda (@EPropoganda1) September 16, 2026
In reality, the footage is not from Makkah, and it is not from 2026. The video dates back to an incident reported near Masjid an-Nabawi in Madinah on September 11, 2025. Conflicting claims continue to circulate about a reported incident involving Saudi Arabia and the Houthis on September 15, 2026.
The video gained renewed attention after an Israeli X account shared it alongside a claim that Saudi air defenses had shot down a drone over Makkah. The post suggested that the incident was the second attack on the holy city since 2017.
The account, described as an open-source intelligence platform with millions of followers, attributed the footage to the latest regional developments. The video noticed a detail that changed the entire story: the mosque visible in the footage was not Masjid al-Haram in Makkah. It was Masjid an-Nabawi.
Saudi authorities dealt with a foreign drone near the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah on September 11, 2025. The incident reportedly occurred at around 5:40 a.m., during the time of Fajr prayers. People in the area reportedly heard a loud explosion, while reports at the time referred to a bright object or flying object visible in the sky.
No casualties or significant property damage were reported. At the time, however, the exact nature of the object became the subject of competing claims.
Amid recent attacks, Houthis denied that they targeted Makkah. A member of the Houthi political bureau described the allegations as a “worn-out lie”, saying similar accusations had been made before. Another Houthi official said the group does not target Makkah or other Islamic holy sites and accused Saudi Arabia of making fabricated allegations against it.
Pakistan, OIC, and Islamic states strongly condemned what it described as a heinous attack based on the Saudi position. These statements, however, form part of the wider dispute over the reported September 15 incident and should be distinguished from the separate question of whether the viral video is genuine footage of that event.
Alleged Houthi drone attack on Makkah foiled, Saudi coalition vows firm response
