Fact Check: AI-generated image shared as people applauding Israeli army from balconies

Hyderabad: An image showing people in Israel reportedly cheering for the Israeli army from buildings as the soldiers walk down the road is going viral on social media.

An X premium user shared the image with the caption, “United Israel.”

An Instagram user shared the image with the caption, “Am Israel chai (Israel flag) bring our family home. (sic)”

Fact Check

NewsMeter examined the image and found it was generated using an AI tool.

Upon minutely examining the image, we found several anomalies commonly found in AI-generated images: people with elongated or clubbed hands, people standing outside the grills in a deformed shape, and many with missing features such as hands and heads. Several people standing on balconies have only elongated hands with no bodily features.

We also ran the image through the AI-detecting website Hugging Face, which analysed the image as 93 per cent AI-generated.

We also noticed a digital signature in the bottom left corner of the viral image that reads, ‘Omri Shefi.’ Our search using this as a keyword led us to a Facebook account of the same name, which posted several images, including the viral one on October 11. The caption has explicitly stated that the images were created using Artificial Intelligence.

Hence, we conclude that the AI-generated image of people cheering the Israeli army is being falsely shared as a real image.