The war between Israel and Iran has escalated, leading to a series of attacks by both countries. This has resulted in the destruction of properties and the displacement of citizens.
On June 13, 2025, Israel launched an operation called the Rising Lion, targeting over 100 sites in Iran. The surprise attack and others coordinated by Israel targeting Iran’s military force, nuclear facilities, missile sites, and key military command centres, caused the killing of senior military commanders and top scientists.
In a counterstrike, Iran launched a long-range missile and armed drone against Israeli cities, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and a major hospital in Beersheba, with Israel suggesting over 240 Israelis injured, in addition to massive property damage.
As these countries continue to wage dangerous strikes against each other, disinformation actors on X have begun spreading false claims and narratives of Iran’s strike against Israel. DUBAWA came across several X pages sharing unrelated narratives alongside AI-generated images and videos to amplify the attacks on Israel by Iran.
In this report, DUBAWA highlights certain accounts that disseminate these false claims and narratives, tracing their provenance and actual context.
Parody accounts spreading AI disinformation
On X, DUBAWA discovered pages impersonating official names in their bio while spreading spurious and synthetic media and deceptive visuals to report Iran’s attack against Israeli nationals. One such page is “Iran Update” (@hehe_samir), a user with a whopping followership of 227,000 and 11 followers.
Although the account’s bio indicated it was a Parody account, many users in the comment section reacted as if the account was valid, sending waves of low media literacy among many social media users. On a daily basis, the account posts misleading content and synthetic media to sway unaware users of Iran’s attack on the people of Israel.
On Jun. 18, 2025, this user shared a video group of a lorry carrying ammunition with the claim that it was a preparation for an attack against Israel.
As of press time, the claim, “Getting ready for tonight’s show,” had accumulated about 2 million views, 19,000 likes, 3,000 reposts, 348 quotations, and 1,900 bookmarks.
Noticing the individual differences that arose in the comment section, where some people questioned Grok, which denied that the video was AI-generated, DUBAWA subjected the video to Cantilux to verify its authenticity. The result indicates a moderate likelihood that the video is AI-generated, while exhibiting a substantial pattern and significant texture of inconsistency, a characteristic sign typically associated with AI visuals.
In another spurious video, the same page on June 19, 2025, shared a 38-second video that features what appears to be a missile lab with scientists dressed in lab coats working in what is presumably a laboratory. The user claimed that the video shows Iran’s missile preparation against the Israelis.
Our investigation of the video led us to a similar post earlier shared by a TikTok page, Amir Khan. According to the page’s description, the account is dedicated to sharing AI-generated images and videos. The video, which was falsely used to depict Iran’s preparation for war, was shared on June 16, 2025, before it was shared on X.
In mid-June, this parody page shared another video, which gained over 529,000 views, 15,800 likes, and 2,100 reposts. This video showed a massive explosion engulfing a huge fire-burning building, with thick smoke billowing into the sky. When we subjected the video’s keyframes to Cantilux, it scored a good percentage of AI features.
Also, DUBAWA traced the origin of the video to another TikTok page, everythingai97, which shares videos made by AI. The initial video, which was misrepresented on X, has been uploaded to that TikTok page since May, before the escalation of the conflict between the warring countries.
Another video shared by this same account suggests destruction of Israel was also linked to this same AI TikTok account, as seen here.
Investigating further, DUBAWA unveiled another page(@patriticHun1) on X sharing a misleading narrative to propagate attacks on Israel by Iran, which has a similar profile image to the former account analysed. This account has 84,300 followers as of the time of writing this report.
On June 14, 2025, @patriticHun1 shared two videos (here and here) showing the violent demolition of mighty high scrapers, linking it to the aftermath of the Iran attack on Israel. Noticing the anomalies in the videos, we conducted a Google image search, which led us to a TikTok page that consistently generates AI-generated videos.
The video, which can be seen here and here on YouTube, was shared on May 26 and July 14, 2025, respectively. This reveals a timing discrepancy between the X user’s post.
Another impersonating account, “Iran News daily commentary” (@DailyIranNews) is also fighting the war with unrelated and AI-generated media, which has accumulated a plethora of engagement despite the fictitious nature of its posts.
DUBAWA noticed that the page, with over 157,000 followers and 3,031 following, has isolated itself from being run or controlled by the Iranian government.
On June 17, 2025, (@DailyIranNews) shared an image of a burning furnace with the caption, “Tel Aviv is burning”. The image, viewed by about 110,000 users on X, featured comments from users who believed the post to be an attack on Israel.
However, when we conducted a Google reverse image search, the result led us to a report of an attack on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, featuring the same image, and an X post confirmed that the image was related to Ukraine.
On that same day, the page shared another image with the caption “Officially, Iran has begun a new round of Operation True Promise 3, and rockets are now raining down on Tel Aviv and Haifa.”
Results from a Reverse Image Search on this image described the image to be a supervision test of a multiple rocket launcher system by leader Kim Jong Un in May, months before the war between Israel and Iran. News outlets also confirmed the development here and here.
The fourth X page, “From Iran,” created in 2023, has 120,000 followers and a suspiciously low following of zero. It also shares unrelated content to propagate the war narrative, as some of its posts have already been flagged by X, as seen here and here.
As these pages and others continue to amplify falsehoods, public consumption and engagement with this post continue to skyrocket, from thousands to millions, as clicks become a target tool alongside reposts.
Moreover, more AI images and videos can be assessed here, here, here, and here.
More falsehood
During our investigation, we noticed that one of the pages monitored by DUBAWA has already been restricted. Meanwhile, a similar symbol was derived from the page, as all four pages use similar profile pictures displaying the Iranian flag.
Although X account has flagged some of these posts as fake and misleading, these pages continue to share more falsehoods, swaying users who primarily engage by liking and reposting these misleading posts.
Away from AI-generated posts, these pages also promote original posts unrelated to the country’s current crisis. In one of its posts, it shared an image of four men with their faces closed and hanged in what seems like a staged execution. The claim was that they are spies sent from Mossad (the national intelligence agency of Israel).
Upon verification, the image turned out to be a scene from the 1968 American Western film Hang’ Em High.
Another image was also shared, portraying the arrest of another set of spies sent by the Israelis. DUBAWA found out that the image was unrelated to recent unrest. It was a 2016 image of US Army sailors detained by Iranian forces. This was reported by credible media reports here, here, and here.
In another misleading post, a user shared a video alleged to be a confrontation between Jewish settlers and soldiers with the caption “Jewish settlers and soldiers face off. Settlers blocking baby-killing soldiers in Tel Aviv:
“It’s all because of you; no one asked you to attack Iran.”
In contrast, an extensive Google reverse image search showed us a fact-check report in November 2024, claiming the video to be Israeli occupation police heading to extinguish fires south of Ayalon Street during a protest demonstration following the dismissal of former Israeli occupation army minister Yoav Galant.
Dangers of disinformation during war
According to Kunle Adebajo, a disinformation expert, countries often engage in disinformation during war to promote their narratives and advocate for the support of international bodies and allies to join their war efforts.
“During war, parties partake in the disinformation trend to convince their followers, citizens, and even their nationals, of this narrative to join the war effort, support, or even convince international partners and friends,” he explained.
He further noted that the spread of disinformation helps the warring parties continue to launder their images and sustains their war efforts by persuading their international allies and citizens to funnel resources towards the conflict.
Silas Jonathan, the digital investigations manager for the Digital Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and Information Disorder Analysis Centre (DIADAC), stated that disinformation during wartime can promote reprisal attacks and create unnecessary fear and unrest among citizens.
He noted that disinformation has longer impacts, which might continue even after the war has been resolved.
“Disinformation can intensify hatred between people, building some narratives that people never forget even when the war is over,” he concluded.
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