‘No Malta Airspace Violation’: Minister Debunks Viral Gaza Drone Clip That Panicked the Island

Watch: ‘No Malta airspace violation’ in alleged Gaza drone incident – minister
By Hot Malta Newsroom

Valletta – A late-night video clip that lit up Maltese WhatsApp groups on Monday – showing what looked like an armed drone gliding low over a moonlit coastline – has turned out to be footage shot 2,000 kilometres away, Transport Minister Aaron Farrugia told parliament on Tuesday.

The 14-second clip, captioned “Gaza drone entering Malta – we’re next”, was viewed more than 80,000 times within three hours, triggering a flood of calls to Lovin Malta, Times of Malta and, crucially, to the island’s volunteer-run Civil Protection emergency line.

Speaking after an urgent briefing with Malta’s Armed Forces (AFM) and Air Traffic Services, Farrugia said radar logs show “zero unidentified tracks” in Malta’s Flight Information Region between 18:00 Sunday and 06:00 Monday.

“The aircraft some residents believed they saw over Għajn Tuffieħa or Xlendi Bay was in fact an Israeli Hermes 450 filmed off the coast of Gaza and uploaded to a Telegram channel at 22:41 CET,” the minister said, flanked by AFM Brigadier Clinton O’Neill. “Misinformation spread faster than our ability to debunk it, but the AFM can state categorically: Maltese airspace was never violated.”

Why the panic felt so real
Malta’s scarred collective memory is never far beneath the surface. From the 1940-42 blitz that dropped 6,700 bombs on the island to the 2016 hijack of an internal Libyan flight diverted to Luqa, citizens are hard-wired to scan the horizon for trouble. Add in the fact that 62 % of Maltese get their news primarily from Facebook groups (Reuters Digital Report 2023) and a single doctored clip can empty supermarket shelves of bottled water within minutes.

“My phone rang 14 times in 20 minutes,” said Sandra Grixti, manager of the 24-hour pharmacy in Birkirkara. “One customer wanted iodine tablets; another asked whether she should pick up her kids from Żurrieq school immediately. We’re an island – when rumours fly, they fly at hurricane speed.”

The Gaza-Malta digital pipeline
Ironically, Malta’s vibrant pro-Palestinian solidarity network helped the clip go viral. Local activists who regularly stream Gaza footage to raise awareness for Friday protests in Valletta re-shared the video with the caption “now over OUR heads”, unintentionally fuelling the breach scare.

Within minutes, the Malta Palestine Solidarity Campaign posted a clarification, but the algorithmic horse had bolted. “We apologise for adding to confusion,” the group wrote. “Our intent is to highlight civilian suffering, not create home-front hysteria.”

Tourism nerves
The timing could hardly be worse. June marks the start of the lucrative UK-Italian family-holiday wave; hoteliers were already twitchy after last week’s Transport Malta strike delayed 36 flights.

“We’ve had 22 cancellations this morning, all citing ‘security fears’,” said Michael Zammit, who manages two sea-front hotels in Mellieħa. “When guests see the word ‘drone’ and ‘Malta’ in the same headline, they don’t wait for the correction. They rebook in Cyprus.”

Economists estimate every 1 % drop in summer arrivals shaves €15 million off GDP. “In an economy where tourism is 27 % of output, fake news has a real cost,” Zammit warned.

Lessons learned
Government sources told Hot Malta that Cabinet will discuss a “rapid-debunk protocol” on Friday, modelled on Finland’s 2020 disinformation unit. Options include pushing verified AFM statements automatically to telecom providers for mass-SMS alerts and granting MaltaToday’s fact-check desk emergency access to radar stills.

Opposition MP Darren Carabott called for a public inquiry. “We need to know why it took seven hours for an official statement,” he said. “In the meantime, we urge citizens to rely on tvmnews.mt and the AFM website, not anonymous Telegram channels.”

Community fallout
At the Ġbejnija café in Qormi, patrons joked about stocking up on kinnie instead of potassium iodide, but the episode has left a mark. “My 10-year-old asked if we should build a shelter like Nanna had in 1942,” said teacher Rebecca Bonnici. “That’s the moment I realised misinformation isn’t virtual – it creeps into bedtime stories, classroom chats, mental health.”

Conclusion
Malta may have been spared a physical intrusion, but the incident exposed how psychologically close conflict feels to an island that has spent centuries trading on neutrality. In a 5G world, fear travels faster than any drone. The real defence gap isn’t in radar coverage – it’s in digital literacy. Until that is fixed, the next viral clip won’t need to cross airspace to shake Malta; it will simply need to land in our pocket.