Israel

Does a trending video on social media authentically capture a fight inside a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv, Israel? No, that's not true: What looked like a crowd pushing each other was a scene from another country, Georgia. It depicted the atmosphere on the day of a verdict in a high-profile trial 13 years earlier. The claim appeared in a…

Does a viral video show an attack, fire or explosion in Tel Aviv, Israel? No, that's not true: The video actually shows a fire in a parking lot for motorcycles in Chongqing, China. Several social media posts falsely claimed the footage showed the result of an Iranian attack on Israel. An example of such a false attribution can be seen…

Does a viral video show the real-life aftermath of an Iranian attack hitting several skyscrapers in Tel Aviv, Israel? No, that's not true: The video digitally exaggerated the impact of a projectile hitting a specific area of that city. Lead Stories analysis found signs pointing to generative AI as the likely origin of the viral clip. The claim appeared in…

Does a viral video show the "first Iranian drone" shot down in Israel in mid-June 2025? No, that's not true: The footage was recorded in Ukraine. It's impossible for it to have documented the Iran-Israel conflict, as it was first posted to the web three years earlier. The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on June…

Did Secretary of State Marco Rubio officially declare that individuals who criticize Israel will be denied entry visas to the United States? No, that's not true: In a video posted along with the claim, Secretary Rubio does say the U.S. has implemented a new visa policy to "prevent foreign nationals from coming to the United States to foment hatred against…

Does a photo shared on social media authentically show Houthis missiles targeting Israel's Ben Gurion Airport in May 2025? No, that's not true: The Houthis' attempt to target the airport on May 18, 2025, failed when Israel's air defenses intercepted the rockets. There was a Houthi missile that hit near the airport on May 4, but none since. The image…

Did Representative Ilhan Omar fail to condemn the shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers at the Capital Jewish Museum, as a social media post implied? No, that's not true: The Minnesota congresswoman posted she was appalled by the shooting and offered thoughts and prayers to the families in a post on X at 9:17 AM Pacific Time on May 22,…

Did a photograph shared online show the victims of a May 21, 2025 shooting outside a Jewish museum in Washington D.C.? No, that's not true: The Israeli embassy named Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim as the two embassy staff shot dead. The picture in question showed two men, neither of them Lischinsky, holding Israeli flags. The claim appeared in…

Did the UN say that 14,000 babies would die if there is no aid to Gaza in 48 hours? Yes, the organization's representative did cite such a figure, but that figure appears to have been drawn from a UN prediction that covered roughly a year between April 2025 and March 2026, not a single day. Here is what we know…

Does this video authentically document the Israeli military bombing Gaza, as a social media post claimed? No, that's not true: The video originated on a TikTok account named "@everythingai97" with a bio that says: "DISCLAIMER: ALL VIDEOS I POST ARE AI GENERATED." Several elements of the video reveal digital artifacts of the kind often found in videos that are made…