Fact check: AI images instead of real Beirut airport attack

What is real in the Middle East conflict and what is not? That's been a question ever since the escalation of violence since Hamas' terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Much of what is shared, liked and commented on online is neither authentic nor up to date. And the latest fighting between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel has again seen a flood of misleading, manipulated or fake content on social media networks. Here are two recent examples:

Claim: Two pictures of an alleged attack on the airport in Beirut are currently going viral: "A photo for the history books. A plane from the airline MEA lands at Beirut International Airport while Israel fires on the airport," writes a user on X, sharing a picture that is supposed to show the airport. Another X user shares a second picture and claims that this was "an airliner full of passengers at Beirut International Airport."

DW Fact check: Fake

Both images are not real but were generated with the help of artificial intelligence. The picture above is supposed to show an airplane approaching to land. Buildings can be seen in the foreground. One of them has illuminated windows. Some of the frames are straight, some are slightly slanted and arranged in a strangely irregular way — something we often encounter in AI-generated images of buildings. In addition, when zoomed in, a kind of blurred bar appears above parts of the aircraft windows and the nose of the aircraft is noticeably short.

We have compared this with images of aircrafts from the airline MEA. According to the company, MEA flies the Airbus models A320 200, A330 200 and A321 NEO. All models have a longer aircraft nose than the one in the AI-generated image. The airline logo on the tail in the image posted on X differs from the actual logo of the airline. There are also anomalies with the aircraft lights. The light shown on top of the fuselage does not comply with international standards. Collision warning lights at the top and bottom of the fuselage are always red, not white as in the picture. This can be seen in the Aviators Guide.

AI detector spots "significant evidence of tampering"

The second picture shows an aircraft on the ground and an airport building in the background. Similar issues can be detected: curved and crooked rows of windows on the building at the back left, landing gear tires on the aircraft that are too far apart, or strangely illuminated doors on the aircraft fuselage. We also checked both images with the AI detection tool from Truemedia.org. In both cases, the software concluded that there was "substantial evidence of manipulation."

Despite these issues, a reverse image search shows that the images were shared on numerous platforms such as Threads, Reddit, Telegram, Instagram, and X.

In addition, several Arabic, Russian and Turkish media outlets that reported on the alleged attack also used these AI-generated images. Even well-known media such as CNN Turk or MSN Turkish fell for the fakes and published them.

However, the fact that the two images are not real but AI-generated does not mean that there have not been actual attacks by the Israeli armed forces on targets such as Beirut airport. At the beginning of October, for example, images in media reports showed several actual explosions near the airport.

Nicolas Hammerschlag Vicuna contributed to this article