EIt was already deep into the night in Israel when the first wave of attacks from Iran reached the country. But Israel and its allies in the region are prepared. Even before the more than 300 drones and missiles reach Israel, most of them are intercepted by fighter jets from Israel, the USA and Great Britain. According to intelligence circles, the majority have already been shot down over Syria. The Jordanian army has also intercepted some of the missiles over its own territory. There were also attacks against Israel from Iraq and Yemen, but they did not reach the country. They too have been shot down before.
Israel's Iron Dome, the country's state-of-the-art defense system, did its part to ensure that the night did not end with another bloodbath. The Israeli military said this morning that 99 percent of all projectiles were repelled. As a result, there was only minor damage to a military base in Israel. There were no deaths, a little girl was injured.
Image shows fires and devastation in Tel Aviv
Nonetheless, Iran called the “retaliatory strikes” against Israel “successful.” Iran's Chief of General Staff Mohammed Bagheri made this statement on Sunday morning. And false information about the success of the attack on Israel is also spreading on the Internet. Particularly on Platform They show impacts and devastation in Israel that do not exist, and attest to the attack from Iran being an alleged success, which cannot be said given that almost all of the missiles were launched.
On Fires have broken out in many places on the ground below. But the image is AI-generated. A scene that doesn't actually exist.
The video in the post, which is supposed to serve as evidence of Iran's firepower, does not show what it claims to do. The video of a nighttime scene while a continuous fire is being set off has been circulating online since October 9, 2023. It supposedly shows a volley fired from Gaza against Israel. She has nothing to do with the attack on Saturday evening.
Another video shows a compilation of various scenes. You can see rockets in the air as well as impacts and an alleged mass panic in Israel due to the attack from Iran. The images in this video also give a false impression. The scene in which people can be seen on the street is played at increased speed. The following scene of the impact is not a recent recording. It probably shows the impact of a rocket from Gaza in the Israeli settlement of Rishon LeZion. The video was first found on the Internet in May 2021. No rockets hit Tel Aviv on the night from Saturday to Sunday.
Another video also shows a massive volley being fired against Israel from a growing cloud of smoke. This video is also taken out of context and does not provide a remotely realistic depiction of last night. The video was first uploaded to the internet in 2015.
There is also an image circulating that suggests an explosion in Tehran, which is supposed to prove that Israel has immediately begun its counterattack on Iran. The image shows a massive fireball in the middle of the city. But this picture is also from a different context. It shows the major fire in an oil refinery that broke out in 2021.
But fake images and videos are not only circulating on social media. The Iranian state media also appears to be showing false images to suggest that Iran's attack on Israel was militarily successful. The Israeli embassy in Berlin has published images that were broadcast on television in Iran. However, the fires that can be seen on it have also been used previously in the context of a fire in Chile in February 2024. So they can't come from the night attack.
Not every fake video has a conspiratorial intention or is a targeted attempt at political influence. Often it is information shared unknowingly in the wrong context that is picked up by other accounts. Some of them are just morbid jokes, like the dancing Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, who was manipulated into the video using an AI. Although the humor may be morbid, in this case it is a harmless meme that actually shows US singer Lil Yachty dancing on stage. Thanks to AI editing, it now looks as if the chief mullah himself is dancing there.
Even if it is not yet clear whether it is a coordinated disinformation campaign that is currently directed against Israel, the number of posts that try to portray Iran's attack as a success is noticeably high. In any case, it seems as if Iran has a clear interest in distracting attention from the failure of its attack.
#Iran39s #attack #Israel #disinformation #fakes #circulating