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| - Does a viral image of a town's nighttime skyline under air attack show Iran's attacks on Tel Aviv during hostilities between the two countries? No, that's not true: Authentic coverage of the battle showed defensive weapons streaking upward and far fewer falling projectiles. Also, Tel Aviv's skyline is defined by more than 50 tall towers, while the image shows a low-slung town. Independently, multiple news agencies have photojournalists covering the missile and drone attacks, and images published do not resemble asteroid showers, as does the viral image.
The image was posted on X.com on June 16, 2025 (archived here) on the @WhiteGhost187 account with a caption that read: "This is not AI." It continued:
This is Tel Aviv
This is what the post looked like on X at the time this fact check was written:
(Source: X.com screenshot by Lead Stories)
The image was published on the fourth day of Israel and Iran launching missiles and drones at one another in June 2025 (archived here), implying it documented damage inflicted on Tel Aviv (archived here), in retaliation for Israel crossing into Iran to kill generals and nuclear scientists (archived here).
Lead Stories submitted the image to Google's reverse search tool, (archived here) and found the same image used on dozens of accounts, none operated by evidence-based news organizations:
(Source: Google.com screenshot by Lead Stories.)
AI detection tool Hive said it was only 17% likely the image was generated using AI but it did appear to detect traces of AI usage.
However Lead Stories also ran the image through AI detection tools at the University at Buffalo's Media Forensic Lab, which focuses on "the forensic analysis of digital media." Together, these tools are called the DeepFake-O-Meter. Two of the tools (AIDE and HIFI) concluded it was '0.27450457215309143' probable out of 1 (archived here) and 100 points probable out of 100 (archived here) that the image was fake.
The image does not depict Tel Aviv, a 9-mile strip of land along the Mediterranean coast. Tel Aviv is Israel's tallest city, with 59 buildings in excess of 300 feet tall that define its skyline, as can be seen in the New York Times' coverage of Iran's night-time attacks on Tel Aviv:
(Source: Newyorktimes.com screenshot by Lead Stories.)
Similarly, CNN's footage of attacks on Tel Aviv (archived here) was framed by the city's famed skyline, where air defense missiles shot upward and there was no curtain of meteors falling:
(Source: CNN.com screenshot by Lead Stories.)
Readers can find more Lead Stories fact checks related to the Israel/Iran conflict here.
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