Emergency personnel work at the scene of an Iranian attack after Iran launched a barrage of missiles following attacks by the United States and Israel on Saturday in Beit Shemesh, Israel, March 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Imagine the scene.
Israeli cityscape with Tel Aviv skyline in the background.
Suddenly, several Iranian missiles rained down, causing a massive explosion and explosion.
X (formerly Twitter) captioned the video: “Tel Aviv stripped of illusions like you’ve never seen before.”
Sound unrealistic? Sounds like a hoax?
That’s because it is.
The video, which has been making the rounds on social media over the past few days and garnering millions of views, was created by artificial intelligence (AI).
The video fooled so many people online that the former French ambassador to Israel was shamefully fooled by it, which British “commentator” Bushra Sheikh gleefully posted before embarrassingly deleting it.
Tel Aviv is a stripped-down illusion you’ve never seen. pic.twitter.com/HE3ckjBMti
— Abdulruhman Ismail (@a_abdulruhman) March 3, 2026
Fighting is unfolding on another front as Israel and the United States bomb Iranian regime targets and the Islamic Republic fires missiles at Israel, Persian Gulf states and other neighboring countries.
AI is one of the key players in this war of disinformation and propaganda.
Whether aiming to demoralize Americans and Israelis, create a false narrative that Iran is winning, or sway millions of ignorant people with false narratives (or all of the above), AI-driven disinformation and propaganda on social media is running on all cylinders.
As OSINT analyst Tal Hagin pointed out on his X-page, among the many misattributed photos that claim to show Israeli damage are: video game footage Claiming to involve real-life fighter jets, this image is a quagmire of AI images and videos intended to deceive and sway the unsuspecting and ill-informed.
Examples of this AI-driven propaganda include:
- An image purporting to show a destroyed American radar in Qatar.
14. This is an image processed with AI (Source: https://t.co/IgGWR1GJuf) pic.twitter.com/YMQwHLAahT
— Tal Hagin (@talhagin) February 28, 2026
- An image that claims to show a child’s backpack at Minab School in Iran, which was bombed on the first day of the war.
21. This backpack image was generated by AI (Source: https://t.co/kZFghEsOMV) pic.twitter.com/KfkdqsD6eo
— Tal Hagin (@talhagin) March 1, 2026
- Numerous videos and images, like the one mentioned at the beginning of this article, claim to show catastrophic explosions and damage in Israeli urban centers (usually Tel Aviv).
24. This is an AI-generated video originally shared on June 2025 (Source: https://t.co/YvZoSwwSOn) pic.twitter.com/L6NeBHkbCj
— Tal Hagin (@talhagin) March 1, 2026
This is not the first time AI has been used during the war between Israel and Iran.
As HonestReporting noted during the “12 Days War” in June 2025, examples of AI that were rapidly spread online by pro-Iranian accounts included images purporting to show the destruction of Israel’s international airport, Israeli military equipment being stored under civilian buildings, and mass shelling of Israeli cities.
As with this war, these AI works aimed to demoralize Israelis, assert to foreign audiences that Iran has the upper hand, and create false narratives that denigrate Israel and glorify the Islamic regime.
After a large number of AI images and videos were leaked in less than a week, X announced on March 3 that it would suspend revenue for 90 days from accounts that spread AI images of armed conflict without disclosing that they were artificially created.
While this is a noble step, it is also an uphill battle as AI-generated images and videos of armed conflict continue to run wild on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media platforms. This does not include all propaganda that does not use images or videos, but seeks to influence and sway people with disinformation, false narratives, and distorted facts.
This is why social media literacy is so important for all ages. In an age where you don’t even have to get out of bed and bad guys can try to influence you, it’s essential to look at all the news provided on social media sites with a critical eye.
Otherwise, you might end up sharing a fake AI video claiming that Iranian missiles are destroying Tel Aviv. Isn’t that embarrassing?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchA dog focused on anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bigotry — where a version of this article originally appeared.
