Emotive Deepfakes in Israel-Hamas War Further Cloud What’s True

An image of a bloodied corpse. A photo of a crying baby edited to look as if it were lying in rubble. Shots of what at first appears to be an entire neighborhood leveled in Gaza.

There’s little doubt that deepfakes—images and videos digitally altered and spread to form false narratives—have been deployed by both sides in the war between Israel and Hamas. Many of them have the hallmarks of content created by generative AI tools.

What’s less clear is whether the images are swaying the masses on social media or influencing decisions.

The majority of the fake photos that have emerged ...