Israeli Defense Force

Does a video featuring a burning fuel tank rolling away after an explosion show an event in Iran in June 2026? No, that's not true: The footage shows an explosion at a gas station in Chechnya, a republic within the Russian Federation, in October 2024, not Iran. The clip also appeared on a social media account labeled as a parody.…

Does the viral image of an Israel Defense Forces soldier wielding an axe beside a headless Christian religious statue really show an act of vandalism? No, that's not true: It's a fake photo. Two days after an image surfaced showing a real vandalism incident in Lebanon, there was no news reporting about a documented second instance of IDF vandalism of…

Do real photos show an Israel Defense Forces soldier repairing and revering the same crucifixion statue he vandalized? No, that's not true: Two images -- one showing a soldier washing the statue and another showing a soldier kneeling at the base of the cross -- are AI-generated. The photos were identified by Google Gemini as having a SynthID watermark. The…

Does a viral image show Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shaking hands with Israeli Defense Forces soldiers in March 2026 amid rumors of his death? No, that's not true: The photo has been online since 2018. As of this writing, no credible media outlet has reported that Netanyahu was wounded or killed in the most recent round of escalation in…

Does a viral video show Israeli soldiers celebrating the 2024 release of comrades who had been detained in connection with charges that nine soldiers had raped a Palestinian at a desert prison camp? No, that's not true: The video was first posted to X on November 10, 2023 and depicts a rowdy party unrelated to the Sde Teiman camp rape…

Did a video shared widely in June 2025 show a real military base under Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, Israel? No, that's not true: The computer-generated animation began as a satirical reference to earlier Israeli claims about the hiding of missiles in civilian contexts. The hospital was hit by an Iranian missile strike on June 19. The claim appeared in…

Does an image of a burnt building really show the Mossad's headquarters hit by an Iranian strike in June 2025? No, that's not true: The giveaway that the picture didn't show a real-life scene was the misspelled name of the Israeli intelligence agency. That and other clues such as inconsistent shadows suggest that the picture has been modified or generated…

Does video labelled on social media as "...footage of the Indian Army's attack on Sialkot, Pakistan" authentically show a 2025 Indian Army assault on its neighbor? No, that's not true: It is misleadingly re-labelled Al Jazeera footage lifted from 2023 coverage of the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas. At the time of writing this, there had been no credible…

Did singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran perform for wounded soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces to show support for Israel? No, that's not true: Sheeran denied this rumor in a now-deleted Instagram story. He stated a charity organization bought tickets to his "large scale public concert." Other reputable entertainment media outlets also posted about Sheeran's denial of the rumor. The implied claim…

Does a viral video show an Israeli tank destroyed "by the resistance's fire" in Lebanon in October 2024? No, that's not true: The claim recycled footage of a Russian tank in Ukraine that emerged on social media nearly a year before the start of Israel's September 30, 2024, ground operation in Lebanon. Ukrainian media initially posted the footage on October…