Israel

Does a viral video show Downtism Cafe in Tehran being destroyed by a U.S.-Israeli airstrike? No, that's not true: The video appeared on the internet 25 days before the most recent military escalation in the region. It showed the consequences of a fire, not a strike. The claim appeared in a post published on X (archived here, here and here)…

Is this a real video of the Burj Al Arab hotel in the Jumeirah neighborhood burning after drone and missile attacks? No, that's not true: An online AI video detection tool determined that the clip is 100 percent "likely to be AI-Generated." A separate tool found visual inconsistencies that resemble computer-generated imagery or CGI. The claim appeared in a video…

Does a screenshot of a video show that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has six fingers? No, that's not true: The screenshot captured a moment when there is a shadow on the side of his hand. The full video from Israel's Government Press Office shows him speaking and gesturing with his hands, each of which has five fingers. The screenshot…

Does a video show angry people at Ben Gurion Airport throwing things at staff behind the counter in March 2026, demanding tickets to leave Israel? No, that's not true: The video shows a group of Israeli youth throwing objects at Arab employees at Jerusalem's Cinema City theater and chanting "Death to Arabs." It happened months earlier, in July 2025. The…

Does a photo show an Iranian missile with "In memory of the victims of Epstein Island" written on it? No, that's not true: An online AI image detection tool found that the image shows signs of digital manipulation, with portions edited or generated using Google AI. A "clean" version of the image without any writing on it also dates back…

Does a video show U.S. troops captured in Iran? No, that's not true: An online AI video detection tool found that the clips of the U.S. soldiers are fake but are intermixed with a real clip of President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. The parts of the video with the troops contain a SynthID watermark indicating it was created…

Does a video show an American oil tanker struck by Iran and burning in the Strait of Hormuz? No, that's not true: The video shows the aftermath of a collision between two oil tankers, neither owned by the United States, in the Gulf of Oman, east of the strait. The video is from the summer of 2025, predating the Middle…

Did U.S. President Donald Trump publicly offer his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to join U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran to "finish off this Khamenei Jr."? No, that's not true: The screenshot of such a post that circulated on social media was digitally manufactured. Trump's account on Truth Social did not show the entry in question, and there was no credible…

Was Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir killed in an Iranian missile strike, despite Israeli media reports that say he died in a "car crash"? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that Ben-Gvir died in either an Iranian missile strike or a traffic accident. The politician was involved in a wreck in April 2024 but was only "slightly…

Does a viral clip show the house fire that killed Iddo Netanyahu, brother of the Israeli prime minister? No, that's not true: That footage was uploaded online weeks before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28, 2026. The clip reviewed in this fact check was recorded in New Jersey, not anywhere in the Middle East. As of publication,…