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War on Iran

These videos and images of the Iran war are AI generated

Footage of missiles raining on Tel Aviv and Dubai's Burj Khalifa in flames among many fake depictions of conflict spreading online
An AI-generated video purports to show Iranian missiles raining down on Tel Aviv in Israel (X/Screengrab)
An AI-generated video purports to show Iranian missiles raining down on Tel Aviv in Israel (X/Screengrab)
By Rayhan Uddin
Published date: 6 March 2026 16:14 GMT | Last update: 3 days 10 hours ago

The world's tallest building on fire, missiles raining down on central Tel Aviv, and an elderly slain leader being pulled from the rubble of the Iranian capital. 

These are just some of the AI-generated images being produced and shared in the fog of regional war.

As the US-Israeli war on Iran nears the one week mark, fighting has spread into information warfare, too. 

Viral videos with millions of views are being shared that depict out of context - or completely made up - events.

It has got to the point where X, formerly known as Twitter, has announced it will demonetise users who repeatedly post unlabelled AI-generated war clips. 

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Nikita Bier, the head of products at X, said that one user based in Pakistan “was managing 31 accounts posting AI war videos”. 

Middle East Eye takes a look at some of the most viral AI-generated videos circulating over the past week.

Tel Aviv 'strikes'

A widely shared AI video purported to show Tel Aviv being showered with multiple missiles, all of which make impact with residential buildings. 

One user posted it with the caption: “Tel Aviv, stripped of illusion, as you have never witnessed it.”

While Tel Aviv has been targeted by Iran, and there have been reports of explosions in the Israeli city, no such barrage of unintercepted missile strikes has taken place. 

A context note has been added to most versions of this video, noting that digital analysis by Hive Direct confirms the presence of synthetic elements in the video. 

An additional sign that the video is AI are distorted solar panels on the roofs of homes. 

Another AI-generated video claimed to show a direct hit on a building in Tel Aviv. 

“A rocket descended like a lover’s poem, kissing the sky first… then slicing the building in two as if it were a heart that couldn’t bear the beauty,” the caption reads. 

The video shows the building splitting in half, with one side toppling completely and the other side leaning over but miraculously remaining intact. This is structurally not possible. 

The clip was viewed over 1 million times. 

US bases in Gulf

Tehran Times, a daily Iranian newspaper with over 250,000 followers on X, posted a false before-and-after shot on 28 February of al-Udeid, a US base in Qatar.

It claimed an “American radar in Qatar was completely destroyed today in an Iranian drone strike”. 

Tal Hagin, an open-source analyst, notes that the image was AI generated. 

He identified that it was based on Google Earth images from 2 October, and that one way to tell it was AI was that all the cars in both pictures were in the exact same location. 

Elsewhere, a video purports to show the moment that two US aircraft are downed in Kuwait. 

One telltale sign that the video is AI generated is the fact that the two pilots who eject from the plane in the video go upwards. 

Parachutes do not propel people upwards, but rather cause deceleration. 

Three American fighter jets were indeed downed in Kuwait on Monday.

The US military said the F-15 aircraft went down “due to an apparent friendly fire incident”.

Iran, however, claimed it had shot down the jets near the Kuwaiti border. Middle East Eye could not independently verify either account.

Attacks on Dubai

Elsewhere, a string of videos purporting to show Iranian attacks in Dubai are also AI. 

One of them, viewed 6.9 million times, purports to show a second round of “Chinese-assisted Iranian army attacks” in Dubai. It shows multiple explosions, and two jets whizzing across the skyline.

The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, can be seen in the background. 

The video contains multiple inconsistencies, including distorted hands and fingers and unnatural human movements. 

Another video shows the Burj Khalifa on fire, with massive smoke plumes visible.

The video is computer-generated. While there have been some fires in high-rise buildings in the UAE, including the Burj Al Arab, the Burj Khalifa has not been impacted. 

Elsewhere in Dubai, a video showed a bombed-out aircraft, with thick smoke visible. The caption said “Dubai Airport out of service”. 

The video was fake and was later taken down by X for violating its rules.  

Dubai International Airport suffered damage from Iranian strikes or projectile debris, but continued limited operations after a temporary closure. 

Iranian bodies

From Iran, an image was shared by multiple accounts claiming to show the body of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the slain supreme leader. 

It depicted emergency workers with torches removing rubble from a bombed-out building, with a body resembling Khamenei dead on the ground. 

A Reuters analysis using Google’s AI detection tool determined with “very high” confidence that the image was not real. 

Khamenei was killed on Saturday, the first day of the war, in a barrage of attacks on Tehran. His daughter, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and granddaughter were also killed, as well as several senior officials.

Another viral post, showing the dead bodies of slain Iranian schoolgirls wrapped in white cloths and being mourned by relatives during a funeral, was also created by AI. 

Evidence of it being AI include distorted faces and inconsistent shadows. 

The picture was shared by Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on occupied Palestine. 

Addressing criticism about the AI image, she said: "The picture is not the issue: the facts are. The bombing, and what was done to the children, has been widely reported.

"It could be a painting or a blank image. The point would remain: killing civilians is a war crime, all the more in the context of an unlawful use of force."

Real footage from the funerals of children killed in a strike on a school in southern Iran was widely shared earlier this week, with thousands in attendance. 

Local authorities say 165 people were killed, most of whom were young girls and boys aged between seven and 12.

Middle East Eye revealed that the school was hit by a "double-tap" strike, with the second strike killing sheltering survivors. 

US investigators and a New York Times investigation suggest the school was hit by the American military.

USS Abraham Lincoln

Several AI-generated videos of US aircraft carriers being hit by Iranian missiles are going viral, particularly on Chinese social media. 

One such video showed missiles raining down on the USS Abraham Lincoln, blasting fighter jets onboard into the sea. 

The creator of the video overlays news footage, in an apparent attempt to make it look more real. 

In a different video, a pro-Iranian government account posted a misleading video of a large vessel on fire, claiming it was the result of a ballistic missile attack on the Abraham Lincoln. 

Iran on Sunday claimed it targeted the vessel with four ballistic missiles, but this was denied by the US military.

The Abraham Lincoln is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Its carrier strike group includes Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles.

It left the South China Sea and headed towards the Middle East ahead of planned military in late January. 

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