Old, AI-Generated Image of a Child Falsely Shared as One From Gaza

The image could be traced back to February, predating the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.

Amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, an image of an injured child crushed under boulders is being shared as one from Gaza. 

This post had 730.4K views at the time of writing this story.

(Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)

What is the truth?: This image dates back to February and was most-likely created using Artificial Intelligence (AI). It does not show a real 'injured child' in Gaza.

How did we find out?: With a Google reverse image search on the viral image, we came across an old post from 8 February posted by X user @ana_wbas3.

• The user had added the flag of Syria in the image's caption.

• The user had posted this image along with three other images as a reply to another X user who wrote about relief measures in Syria. 

• Further, we ran the image on AI-detector websites that revealed the following, and while Hugging Face said there was 64 percent chance of the image being created using AI, Illuminarty gave it a 1.6 percent probability. 

• Swipe right to see the results. 

• We also took a closer look at the viral image and found abnormalities in the child's features such as the fingers.

• It's known that while AI is creating incredibly accurate human images, it still struggles with some features like fingers.

Conclusion: Clearly, this image is old from February and was possibly created using AI. Since the image predates the ongoing war, it is not related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

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