How we know a widely-viewed video of a malnourished Gazan is not AIpublished at 17:11 British Summer Time
Richard Irvine-Brown
BBC Verify journalist
In our work, we often come across AI-generated images being passed off as real developments related to conflict. Less often we also come across examples of real footage which leads to accusations of being fabricated.
This weekend we saw three critical X posts – with the same exact wording and 75,000 views between them – claiming a picture of a malnourished Palestinian man had been generated by Grok, X’s AI tool.
We have investigated and can confirm it wasn’t.
The video was shared by Ramy Abdu, chairman of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. His post has been viewed half a million times.
Those critical posts focused on the man’s hand as proof of AI-generation because the technology can struggle to replicate details like digits, ears and hair. These are often rendered inconsistently by AI – but in this instance a mark on the man’s hand does not change shape throughout the clip.
We have also seen other recent videos of the man, named as Salim Asfour, which show the same light mark around the upper knuckle of his right middle finger – as you can see below.
This screenshot is from an interview with Samer al-Boji, a journalist in Gaza, who had recently been posting material from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
We also know from the metadata attached to al-Boji’s clip on Instagram that it was posted late morning on 3 August.