‘Tel Aviv Destroyed’: Viral Video Proves the Dangers of AI During Israel-Iran War
Emergency personnel work at the site of an Iranian strike, after Iran launched missile barrages following attacks by the US and Israel on Saturday, in Beit Shemesh, Israel, March 1, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
Imagine the scene.
An Israeli cityscape, with the Tel Aviv skyline in the background.
Suddenly, several Iranian missiles rain down, causing huge blasts and explosions.
As the video was captioned on X (formerly Twitter), “Tel Aviv, stripped of illusion, as you have never witnessed it.”
Does it sound unreal? Does it sound made up?
That’s because it is.
This video, which has made the rounds on social media over the past couple of days, garnering millions of views, was created by AI (artificial intelligence).
This video fooled so many people online that a former French ambassador to Israel embarrassingly fell for it, and it was gleefully posted by British “commentator” Bushra Shaikh before she had to sheepishly take it down.
Tel Aviv, stripped of illusion, as you have never witnessed it. pic.twitter.com/HE3ckjBMti
— Abdulruhman Ismail (@a_abdulruhman) March 3, 2026
As Israel and the US bomb Iranian regime targets and the Islamic Republic, in turn, fires missiles into Israel, Persian Gulf countries, and other neighboring states, a battle is being fought on another front.
In this war of disinformation and propaganda, AI is one of the key players.
Whether it is meant to demoralize Americans and Israelis, create a false narrative that Iran is winning, or sway millions of uninformed people with false narratives (or all three), the AI-driven disinformation and propaganda on social media is running on all cylinders.
As OSINT analyst Tal Hagin has pointed out on his X page, among the slew of misattributed photos claiming to show damage in Israel — and video game footage claiming to be real-life fighter jet entanglements — is a morass of AI images and videos meant to deceive and sway the unsuspecting and less-informed.
Examples of this AI-driven propaganda include:
- An image purporting to show a destroyed American radar in Qatar;
14. This is an AI manipulated image (source: https://t.co/IgGWR1GJuf) pic.twitter.com/YMQwHLAahT
— Tal Hagin (@talhagin) February 28, 2026
- An image claiming to show a child’s backpack at the Minab school in Iran that was bombed on the first day of the war;
21. This backpack image was AI-generated (Source: https://t.co/kZFghEsOMV) pic.twitter.com/KfkdqsD6eo
— Tal Hagin (@talhagin) March 1, 2026
- Like the video mentioned at the beginning of this piece, lots of videos and images claiming to show devastating explosions and damage in Israeli urban centers (usually Tel Aviv).
24. This is an AI-generated video, originally shared in June 2025 (Source: https://t.co/YvZoSwwSOn) pic.twitter.com/L6NeBHkbCj
— Tal Hagin (@talhagin) March 1, 2026
This isn’t the first time that AI has been used during a war between Israel and Iran.
As noted by HonestReporting during the “12-day war” in June 2025, examples of AI that spread rapidly online by pro-Iran accounts included images purporting to show the destruction of Israel’s international airport, the storage of Israeli military hardware under civilian buildings, and mass bombardments of Israeli urban areas.
Like in this current war, these AI productions were meant to demoralize Israelis, claim to a foreign audience that Iran had the upper hand, and create false narratives that denigrated Israel and glorified the Islamic regime.
Due to the glut of AI images and videos that have been pumped out in less than a week, X announced on March 3 that it would demonetize any account for 90 days that spreads AI images of armed conflict without revealing that they are artificially created.
While this is a noble step, it is an uphill battle, as AI-created images and videos of armed conflict continue to run amok on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and other social media platforms. This doesn’t even include all the propaganda that doesn’t use images and videos, but still seeks to influence and sway people with disinformation, false narratives, and distorted facts.
This is why social media literacy for all ages is so important. In an age where bad actors can attempt to influence you without you even needing to leave the bed, it is imperative to view all news provided on social media sites with a critical eye.
Otherwise, you might end up sharing a fake AI video claiming that Iranian missiles are devastating Tel Aviv. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.