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| - An image is being shared widely on social media with claims that it shows four Israeli soldiers who have been captured by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The picture has been circulating on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook, with captions saying: “Hezbollah has captured many Zionist terrorists in South Lebanon.”
But the picture has almost certainly been created using Artificial Intelligence (AI). In addition, we have found no credible, recent reports of soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) being captured by Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
However, IDF soldiers have been killed and injured by Hezbollah since the ground offensive by Israel in Lebanon began on 30 September.
The IDF recently said it had captured three members of Hezbollah’s Rawan forces after discovering them in a shaft underneath a building in southern Lebanon.
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Why do we think this was AI-generated?
We contacted Professor Hany Farid, who specialises in digital forensics and image analysis at the University of California, Berkeley, about the veracity of the picture.
He said, via email, that it was “almost certainly an AI-generated image”.
Professor Farid added that his three models, trained to distinguish real from AI images, collectively categorised the pictures as fake.
He went on to say: “In addition, I analysed the cast shadows in the image and they are not physically consistent or plausible. Additionally, you can see garbled text on the backs of the four men—a telltale sign of AI-generation. And lastly, I suspect that the men’s hands were blurred because AI-generators can still sometimes struggle with rendering plausible hands.
“Collectively, there is little doubt that this is an AI-generated image.”
At first glance, the picture appears highly realistic. But there are several clues that reveal it was made with AI.
The left foot of the kneeling soldier in the furthest left side of the image is unnaturally long, extending and morphing into the rocks on the floor.
A rifle next to the same soldier’s feet appears to have barrels at either end.
The second soldier from the left’s feet are also unnaturally short, cutting off half way before the toe, and seeming to merge with the ground.
AI-created content with captions claiming to show real events are a growing form of misinformation we see being shared online, and we have previously fact checked fake images of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a ventilator and another of police officers in the UK supposedly kneeling in front of men in Islamic dress.
To help you recognise bad information online we have created a technical guide on how to identify these pictures.
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