Fact-Check: This Image of a Child Looking at an Explosion Is AI-Generated

As the war between Israel and Hamas continues, an image of a toddler standing in what appears to be a building that is destroyed by an explosion is going viral on the internet.

What are users saying?: Those sharing the image have captioned it, "This is what children in Gaza wake up to."

The image had recorded more than 65,000 views at the time of writing this report. Archives of similar claims can be found here, here, and here.

What is the truth?: The image is not real and has been generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).

How did we find out?: A Google Lens search led us to the same image uploaded on the official X handle of GDH, a Turkish media outlet.

• The image was uploaded on 11 October and its caption when translated to English said, "Picture of life in Gaza drawn by Artificial Intelligence."

Yapay Zeka tarafından çizilen Gazze'de yaşamın resmi. pic.twitter.com/zYXPddMgwC

— gdh (@gundemedairhs) October 10, 2023

Passing the image through AI detection tools: Team WebQoof passed the image through two AI detection tools namely — Optic AI or Not and Hugging Face.

• Both tools indicated that the image is AI-generated and does not show a real incident.

(Swipe right to view both results.)

Can similar images be created?: Yes, we used the web version of Stable Diffusion and gave it a few prompts to check if we could generated similar visuals as the viral one. You may view the results below.

Conclusion: It is clear that an AI-generated image of a child looking at an explosion is being shared on the internet as a real incident.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)