Images of Gazan child before deadly airstrike are from real video, but likely AI

Editor's note: This article contains graphic and violent content. - A rumor circulated online in September 2026 alleging several images show the moment immediately before an Israeli "double tap" airstrike reportedly killed a Gazan child attempting to help a wounded person. - Research on this subject concluded the images were enhanced, likely with artificial intelligence. However, further examination found an authentic video served as the reference point for the enhanced images. - According to news reports, the video shows a boy named Muhammad al-Zinati dying in an airstrike that took place moments after an earlier strike injured or killed a man in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City on Sept. 15. Getty Images hosts authentic photos that appear to match the same neighborhood, date and story. - We contacted Palestinian news agencies reporting on the matter, as well as the Israeli government, Israeli military, Pentagon and White House, to ask about the incident. The Pentagon referred us to the Israeli military. We will update this article if we receive further information. In September 2026, people shared various images online allegedly showing the moment immediately before an Israeli "double tap" airstrike reportedly killed a Gazan child who was attempting to help a wounded person. The images show one adult lying on the ground and the child, a boy, reacting to an incoming missile or other type of aerial weapon about to strike the ground. A Snopes reader emailed an X post attachment, asking, "Very curious to understand if this picture posted to X is real. Stating it's a missile about to hit a child in Gaza." (@mhdksafa via X) A reverse image search found users sharing the same image (archived), as well as a slightly different image on Facebook (archived) and X (archived) — featuring differences in the appearance of the purported missile, debris from a destroyed building and a person lying on the ground. (@PalPress24 via X) The same reverse image search located posts of a third image showing the same scene, including on Instagram (archived) and X (archived) — also with differences in the appearance of the aerial object, the building debris and the person lying on the ground. (@hasoonmasre via X) In sum, the images provided a cropped and enhanced look at a real moment sourced from an authentic video, likely achieved with the help of artificial intelligence. One low-quality, blurry frame of that same genuine video, highlighted in other posts, truly appears to show a missile or other aerial weaponry right before a fiery explosion. For example, this post (archived) shows the authentic, unaltered moment: (@Hakeam via X) Two comparisons of the enhanced and original (blurry) frames confirm they were shot from the same perspective, ruling out the idea a photographer also separately captured a still picture at the exact same moment. A Threads post hosts the authentic (and graphic) video. That post also displays one of the altered and enhanced images to the left of the genuine clip. The video itself doesn't display any signs of AI. The clip's one-minute length serves as a credible indicator of its authenticity (most AI-generated videos on social media are extremely short, lasting only seconds). Snopes emailed the Israeli government (including the Israeli military) to pose questions about its purported participation in the airstrike. We also emailed the Pentagon, whose spokesperson referred us to the Israeli military, and emailed the White House, as well as news media outlets reporting out of Gaza, for comment. We will update this story if we receive further details. More about the airstrike deaths The Arabic-language Al Jazeera and Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency, as well as Palestinian outlets Al-Resalah and Shehab News Agency, all reported the news of the airstrikes. Some of these outlets shared the enhanced images without making note of the alterations, reporting the location of the incident as the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, the date as Sept. 15 and the identity of the young victim as Muhammad al-Zinati (الل محمد الزيناتي), a boy described as "no more than 15 years old" who was reportedly walking from a Quran memorization circle. According to the outlets, the video shows him approaching the man lying on the ground, identified as Sharif Shadi Labd (شريف شادي لبد), who was injured by an Israeli airstrike moments earlier. The Shehab article and that publication's Telegram feed host other videos of al-Zinati's death, including clips reportedly showing his body covered in blood at the scene of the airstrike, as well as several moments with his father crying over him (longer video). Getty Images hosts photos of the purported father, identified as a relative in several of the pictures, crying over a body, possibly al-Zinati. Its caption and other images match the neighborhood and date. The media-licensing company credited the pictures to photographers Ahmed Younis and Saeed M. M. T. Jaras. Some of Shehab's still-image content appear to feature AI editing, for example the overly smooth look of an image showing the two victims posing together, possibly created from two authentic photos. The Al Jazeera (Palestine) Facebook page also featured (archived) one of the enhanced images, as well as other video clips allegedly from the same scene. Via Messenger, we contacted Al-Resalah (archived) and Al Jazeera (Palestine) (archived) to inquire about the altered images in their Facebook posts, as well as Shehab News Agency via X to ask about another enhanced image in one of its posts (archived) — mainly whether the images were edited with AI or reposted from elsewhere. Al-Resalah and Shehab are both affiliated with the militant and political group Hamas, according to The New York Times and BBC News. We will update this article if we receive further information. We found some of the aforementioned reporting by using Google Translate to search for the victims' Arabic-language names, a research strategy that can display results that may not show up in an English-only search. For further reading, we previously investigated a rumor alleging United Airlines flew military equipment to Israel.