Middle East escalation spawns flurry of falsehoods

AAP FACTCHECK – The escalation of tensions in the Middle East has sparked a flurry of disinformation on social media platforms.

In particular, Iran’s rocket attack on October 2 has unleashed conspiracy theories and seen the dissemination of misrepresented videos and recaptioned war footage from other parts of the world.

One claim suggests Israel had inserted fake clouds into satellite images to obscure damage caused by Iran’s attack on the Nevatim air base.

The claim is based on a screenshot of a satellite image showing an obscured section over the base.

“Irael [sic] has obscured today’s satellite imagery of Nevatim airbase in the Negev with fake digital clouds”, one Facebook user said.

However, experts told AAP FactCheck that the obscured section shows genuine clouds and are consistent with weather in the region and other satellite mapping.

 Dr Adrian Fisher, an expert in satellite imagery at the University of New South Wales, said the satellite image shows genuine clouds.

“The image does not show fake digital clouds, they are real clouds,” Dr Fisher said.

Dr Fisher identified that the image was taken by a Super Dove satellite on the morning of October 2.

Stuart Phinn, the director of the Earth Observation Research Centre and a professor in satellite-image data, said clouds with a similar orientation could be seen over the region on October 2.

He also said the claim made no sense, as imaging radar data from companies such as Iceye and Capella Space could be used to see through clouds and smoke in satellite images.

The social media posts suggest the “tiling” of sections of the satellite image is evidence of the clouds being artificially added.

However, Clive Fraser, a professor in photogrammetry and satellite imagery at the University of Melbourne, said there was a simple explanation for the two sections appearing “butted together”.

“The tiling of satellite images is a common practice, since the digital image files can be very large, and imagery is often sold in pieces/tiles,” Prof Fraser said. 

“The angle of the join line appears consistent with the inclined orbit track of near-earth polar imaging satellites.”

US officials told the Wall Street Journal that missiles did hit the Nevatim base during the attack, causing minor damage.

Other claims to emerge in recent days include a video claiming to show Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “running for his life” following the attack.

However, the video was originally posted on X by Mr Netanyahu in 2021 and depicts him running to vote in Israel’s legislature.

The false claim was also posted on X by Australian-based commentator Maram Susli (also known as Syrian Girl or Partisan Girl), who has been previously fact-checked by AAP FactCheck.

Other users have posted videos and photos of the supposed destruction in Israeli cities, including this video claiming to show a large fire burning near buildings and vehicles following the missile attack. 

However, news reports from August reveal the video was from a petrol station explosion in Yemen.

Another video showing a 2023 drone attack in Moscow was falsely captioned to claim it was from Tel Aviv.

Another montage video being shared shows a volley of missiles being shot out of mobile launchers.

 Many of the posts share the  caption: “Iran has been preparing for this moment for decades.”

The first ten seconds of the montage shows gameplay from a video game with obvious pixelation and uniform animations. 

The video game was previously posted in March, predating Iran’s attack.

 Many of the video game posts credit the Telegram channel of Simeon Boikov, a pro-Kremlin commentator based in the Russian consulate in Sydney.

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