Does a viral image actually show the funeral of the children killed during the U.S.-Israel attack? No, that's not true: It contains multiple artifacts characteristic of AI. The account that was the source of the picture later disclosed that it used AI to create it.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on X on March 3, 2026. The caption read:
165 coffins of schoolgirls being buried today...
This is what the image attached to the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @DalrympleWill on X.)
A school strike that killed dozens in Minab, Iran, occurred on Feb. 28, 2026 (archived here), the first day of the U.S.-Israel military operation in the region, but the viral image did not document the funeral of the strike's victims.
Several clues in the picture suggested that it was probably generated by AI.
In the middle of the picture, the face of one of the grieving women appears to be lit from below, but there is no obvious small local light source (such as a candle) in front of her that would explain the red glare:
(Image source: post by @DalrympleWill on X.)
Just behind that woman, we see another pair of the supposed funeral attendees hugging each other. However, their hands touching each other form a shape that looks nothing like human hands:
(Image source: post by @DalrympleWill on X.)
A close look at the images of the deceased reveals similar glitches strongly pointing to AI. For example, we can spot distorted faces:
(Image source: post by @DalrympleWill on X.)
Two images of the girls from the first rows appear to be nearly identical. While it's impossible to absolutely rule out that some of the children could have been twins, the fact that one face shows the same distortions as the previous example further suggests the image is not authentic. Additionally, had the image been real, members of the same family would more likely have been laid to rest beside one another rather than placed diagonally across from each other.
(Image source: post by @DalrympleWill on X.)
Finally, some of the "portraits" lacked facial features or showed no faces at all:
(Image source: post by @DalrympleWill on X.)
An account that appears to have been the first to publish the image on X on March 3, 2026, later wrote that it was not an authentic photo (archived here):
I shared the AI-generated photo symbolically to reflect the scale of the tragedy...
The automated detection tool Hive Moderation corroborated the visual analysis and concluded that it was 99.9% likely the image was generated using AI: 
(Image source: Hive Moderation.)
Images of the funeral (archived here) published by reputable media organizations showed different settings and did not include the image reviewed in this fact check or any other variations of the shots capturing the same scene.
