With tensions escalating in the Iran-Israel conflict, which has claimed many civilian lives since it began on June 13, a video of an Israeli soldier in tears, begging for mercy, has gone viral. In the video, the soldier looks at the camera and urges the Iranian army to stop the destruction, while injured soldiers are seen lying in the rubble of destroyed buildings in the background. "Iran, we beg you. Please stop the attacks. Half of Israel is gone. We surrender. Just stop this destruction," he says.
The conflict between the two, which is threatening to turn into an all-out war, started with Israel attacking nuclear and military sites in Iran on June 13. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack 'Operation Rising Lion' - supposedly launched to disconcert Iran's nuclear program. However, the strikes resulted in the deaths of many ordinary citizens, after which Iran, too, resorted to retaliatory missile strikes.
X user (@Skylar_Soul_) posted the viral video on June 16. When this article was written, the post had accumulated more than 100,000 views and was reshared over 1,000 times. (Archive)
Another X user, @dpsingh1313, posted the same video, which was viewed over 160,000 times at the time this article was written. (Archive)
The viral video was also shared by several other X users, including @Deb_livnletliv, @SanjeevCrime, @Ayesha786Majid, @armanofficial00 and @hammehaiindia62. (Archived links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
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The same video was viral on Facebook with similar claims.
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Fact Check
A reverse image search on one of the key frames from the clip led us to the same video on YouTube posted around the same time, but with better resolution.
We noticed that the YouTube version had a clear watermark 'Veo' on the bottom right corner. The same watermark can be seen in the viral video as well, but owing to lower resolution, it is faint and not very apparent.
Veo is an artificial intelligence-based video generation tool, launched by Google this year. It allows users to create 8-second-long realistic videos without anatomical abnormalities.
Note that the viral video is precisely 8 seconds long. Moreover, what makes Veo stand out from other video generation models is its ability to integrate audio and dialogue without distortions, which is evident in the viral video.
To be sure, we also ran the video through HIVE's AI detection tool. According to this, there is an 88% likelihood that the viral video was AI-generated.
Based on these findings, we were able to conclude that the viral video showing an Israeli soldier crying and pleading with Iran to stop the retaliatory strikes against Israel is artificially generated through Google Veo, and not real.
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Hello, my name is Ankit Sahu. I'm a 25 year old self-employed Pirate from the Chhindwara.