Gaza

Does a photo show a man from Gaza buried in concrete by Israeli soldiers? No, that's not true: Social media posts using this same picture first claimed in May 2026 it was linked to a murder in Brazil by a criminal gang. Lead Stories found no credible news reports or other reliable evidence confirming that Israeli soldiers did this to…

Did UN Women publish a report saying it confirmed "639 rapes and over 3,000 cases of sexual harassment in the Ukrainian Armed Forces"? No, that's not true: At the time of writing, there was no such report on the UN Women website, and the organization confirmed to Lead Stories it had never published such data. Posts with the claim reused…

Are social media posts claiming celebrities "went live at 3 a.m." with a message saying they received a threat meant to silence them real? No, that's not true: None of the celebrities named in the posts made any such statement. The claims came from AI-generated Facebook posts produced by a spam operation managed from Vietnam. Among the false posts Lead…

Does a real image show how Gaza looks in 2026 compared to how it looked in 2023? No, that's not true: The "before image" really shows the Al Rasheed coastal road in 2022 or 2023 but the "after image" purporting to show 2026 is fake. The modern architecture of the Sheikh Ajlin Mosque's upright minaret tower serves as a landmark…

Was Bruce Springsteen's summer tour canceled over his politics and lack of ticket sales? No, that's not true: The claim originated on a satirical Facebook page run by Christopher Blair, a self-described liberal with a documented history of creating fake content to trick conservatives into sharing it. The disclaimer from the account says "nothing on this page is real" and…

Is there a real set of pictures of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wearing a Palestinian flag scarf and slapping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? No, that's not true: The pictures are screenshots from an AI-generated video. Additionally, as of April there are no reports of Meloni slapping Netanyahu. The claim appeared in a post made on X by the…

Are viral posts real that claim Cole Allen, the suspect in the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting, worked as a driver for dozens of celebrities? No, that's not true: The false claim is part of an AI-generated series of articles and posts created by a spam operation managed from Vietnam. Fake fan pages are used to target North American and…

Did Cole Allen, the suspect in the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting, work as a production crew member on films and tours for a dozen actors and musicians? No, that's not true: The false claim is part of an AI-generated series of articles and posts created by a spam operation managed from Vietnam. Fake fan pages are used to target…

Is a video showing a Politico report claiming Germany is preparing to take in 400,000 Palestinian refugees real? No, that's not true: There are no reports from Politico or any other news organization that Germany plans to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees, Palestinian or otherwise. In addition, an online AI detection tool determined that the audio in the…

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…