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New video posted to social media from southern Gaza became the center of a heated internet debate about whether it was generated using artificial intelligence.
The video, which started circulating Tuesday, shows a person in a camouflage-print face covering and baseball cap making a heart sign and a “shaka” sign with their hands in front of a large crowd of Palestinians gathered along rows of fences, waiting for food aid at the Tal as Sultan distribution site in Rafah.
A combined analysis from NBC News and Get Real Security, a cybersecurity company that specializes in detecting generative AI, found no evidence of AI generation or manipulation in the video.
NBC News geolocated the video to inside the Tal as Sultan aid distribution site, recently constructed by Israel’s civilian policy unit — the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) — in partnership with the Gazan Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The chief spokesperson for the GHF confirmed with NBC News that this video was originally distributed by their team but could not confirm the identity of the person in the video.
“Any claim that our documentation is fake or generated by AI is false and irresponsible,” the foundation said in a statement.
Satellite imagery from Planet Labs and drone footage taken by the Israeli military show the same row of light poles and lines of fencing in the video. Additional collapsed structures and foliage rise behind and between the poles across a dirt lot in the direction of the Mediterranean Sea.
Shortly after the video was posted to X, users began fighting in the comments about its authenticity. “This video is AI generated,” one user wrote. “Nothing can be believed because it could just as easily have been AI generated.”
“I am not seeing any obvious signs that this video is AI-generated,” Hany Farid, co-founder of Get Real Security and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told NBC News.
“We see strong continuity in features as the camera pans back and forth, something that generative AI struggles with,” Farid said, noting specific details like the crisp “Ray Ban” logo on the side of the sunglasses worn by the person sporting the baseball cap, as well as the consistency of the shadows made by various objects in the video.
Farid noted that the audio track appears to be consistent with what’s shown in the video itself — down to the sound of the wind and someone saying in English, “Isn’t that crazy? Look at that.”
A reverse image search revealed that the person making gestures to the crowd was wearing a pair of Oakley S.I. gloves, which have been seen worn by U.S. contractors in Gaza as recently as January.
