A viral video purporting to show Israeli soldiers destroying a church in southern Lebanon was generated by AI, according to a fact check by iVerify Pakistan. The review cited visual inconsistencies and forensic tools that flagged the clip as a hoax.
ISLAMABAD: A widely shared video on social media that purports to show Israeli soldiers destroying a church in southern Lebanon is digitally fabricated and was originally published by iVerify Pakistan, a project of CEJ-IBA and UNDP.
The clip began circulating on Instagram, X, and Facebook on June 2, 2026, with several accounts describing it as footage of Israeli forces desecrating a church in southern Lebanon. The posts were shared by multiple users, including accounts identified as pro-Palestinian and pro-Iranian based on past activity. Among the captions cited were Israeli soldiers bragging about damaging Christian churches in Lebanon, including a claim that the footage was from the town of Debel.
The video received a lot of attention online. One post on Instagram received 265,000 views and one on X received 170,000 views. Other shares included posts with 138,700, 85,300, 90,000, 47,000, and 44,700 views. The same clip was also reposted in a similar context on Facebook, Instagram, and X, and those additional shares racked up a combined 170,000 views.
How the video was rated
Eyeverify Pakistan said it had begun investigating the claim due to the scale of its distribution and the public’s interest in developments related to the Middle East conflict. A keyword search was performed to determine whether reliable international, local, or mainstream media had reported on such incidents, but no matching coverage was found.
A closer look at the footage revealed discrepancies related to the AI-generated video. In the opening frame, only two religious portraits were visible on the church wall, but by the 10-second mark, six religious portraits were visible on the same wall. The wall initially appeared to be a continuous concrete surface with a red religious flag bearing a cross, but later the same area appeared to have a recessed alcove with a previously invisible religious portrait.
Another contradiction concerns the soundtrack. At 17 seconds, the soldier’s feet appeared to be tapping the floor making a loud noise, but at 18 seconds the same action was repeated twice without a corresponding audio, another common sign of AI-generated material.
Forensic analysis and conflict situations
Several forensic tools also flagged the footage as a hoax. Hive Moderation rated it as 83% AI-generated content, while Uncov.ai classified it as AI-generated content with 94% confidence. DeepFake-O-Meter, a tool provided by the University at Buffalo, also demonstrated a high level of digital manipulation.
Based on these findings, this claim was rated false and the video did not show Israeli soldiers destroying churches in southern Lebanon.
The backdrop to the widespread conflict in Lebanon is that more than 3,000 people have died in Lebanon since the war with Israel began on March 2, 2026, according to the latest casualty figures released by the country’s Ministry of Health on May 18, 2026. Hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel have been ongoing since US President Donald Trump first announced a cease-fire on April 16, 2026, and fighting has been mostly limited. To southern Lebanon. The Israeli military claimed to have attacked more than 30 Hezbollah infrastructure targets in southern Lebanon, including weapons warehouses, observation posts, and buildings used to carry out attacks against Israeli forces.
