Is it true that Major Gen. Tesfaye Ayalew said TPLF opened war with Eritrea?

On July 7, 2026, Ethiopia's Parliament held its last session before the new government takes office in September. During the session, Members of Parliament raised social, economic, and political issues, and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed responded to their questions. Following the session, old videos circulated on social media using the context of the parliamentary discussions to make misleading claims.

One of these claims was shared by a TikTok account named "ፍትህ," which has more than 22.4K followers. The account posted a video claiming that ENDF Deployment Department Head Major General Tesfaye Ayalew said, "TPLF has opened fire on us with Eritrea." By the time of verification, the video had received more than 211k views, over 11k likes, and 1,480 shares on TikTok.

After the CARD Fact-Checking Team identified the claim, the team verified it through online research and reverse image searches. The team found that the video was not recent. It was an excerpt from an interview given by Brigadier General Tesfaye Ayalew to the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) on August 24, 2022, regarding the war in northern Ethiopia, nearly four years before the claim was shared.

The team also found that the TikTok version was heavily edited, with multiple cuts and unrelated military aircraft footage added to the interview clip. The original ENA (uploaded in EBC YouTube) interview lasted 2 minutes and 23 seconds, while the TikTok version was shortened to 1 minute and 18 seconds, changing the original context of the statement.