AI-generated video purportedly showing fiery aftermath of Israeli airstrike in Beirut goes viral
A video montage of airstrikes in Beirut. posted to X on Sunday night, showed massive fires on the city skyline — but the most dramatic scene was made by artificial intelligence.
The clip, which purported to show fiery footage of Israeli bombardment in Lebanon was taken from a short video posted to TikTok five days earlier by the account under the username @digital.n0mad, whose bio on the app says they are an AI artist. The video was tagged as being in Beirut, but also carried a disclaimer that it was AI-generated, a label also applied to some of the account's other sensational video creations.
The AI video carries some hallmarks of computer-generated footage. The most obvious sign is that the vehicle traffic is moving at a much faster speed than the fires. Additionally, a mound next to the two large towers appears to melt, and the large building's roofline is not connected to anything.
Following that portion, the second part of the X video is real footage of an Israeli strike near Beirut's international airport on Saturday night. The real footage was broadcast live on Lebanese TV network Al Jadeed, and CBS News has verified that video.
The video, including the five-second clip of the AI-generated imagery, was posted by several prominent accounts, including Rula Jebreal, an analyst and lecturer at the University of Miami, with more than 207,000 followers on X, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., which later deleted the post.
Jebreal did not reply to a request for comment, and CAIR did not elaborate on why it reposted the video.
The organization said in a statement to CBS News that only the first few seconds showed AI-generated content, noting that the rest of the video was real footage from Beirut.
"This therefore appears to be one of those unusual instances in which the mistaken use of AI footage didn't change anything substantively about the point being made: buildings in Beirut are burning under an indiscriminate Israeli bombing campaign," a CAIR spokesperson said.
Since Israel increased strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon two weeks ago, CBS News Confirmed has verified dozens of authentic videos from Beirut and other parts of the country, including clips showing large fires, secondary explosions, people running in the streets, and extensive damage. While there is misleading content circulating on social media, it generally takes the form of old footage reposted as being from the current conflict, not outright fake or doctored videos.
Lebanon's health ministry says more than 2,000 people have been killed in the last two weeks, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said during a visit to Lebanon on Sunday that more than a million people have fled their homes.
