On November 6 and 7, floods affected refugee camps in the Gaza Strip. Numerous videos shared on social networks show the distress of residents. However, false videos, generated by artificial intelligence, sow doubt and are used by pro-Israeli accounts.

Published on: 09/11/2026 - 18:30

In the Gaza Strip, 1.4 million Palestinians live in tents and makeshift shelters, or 65% of the enclave's population, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

On November 6 and 7, torrential rains fell in the Gaza Strip. According to the Displaced Persons Sites Management Group (SMC), cited by OCHA, more than 6,000 family shelters were destroyed and more than 17,000 damaged. According to a flood risk assessment carried out by the International Organization for Migration and the SMC, around 761,000 people in Gaza's displaced sites are at risk of being affected by flooding this winter.

Fake videos gone viral

In this context, images were relayed on social networks showing the distress of the inhabitants of the enclave who are directly suffering the consequences of these heavy rains. The Reuters news agency, for example, documented the situation and published images of flooding in the displaced person camps.

But among the content relayed by Internet users, some inauthentic videos surfaced and went viral on X. On one of them, viewed more than 250,000 times, we see children crowded into a tent and caught in a torrent of muddy water.

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After analyzing the image on SynthID, the detection tool developed by Google to identify digital watermarking present in several AI generators, such as those from Google or OpenAI, the video in question would be neither edited nor generated by AI (for more explanations, read our article on the subject).

However, anomalies present in the image – a three-fingered hand and a malformed head – prove that the video is inauthentic. The fact-checking site Lead Stories also found the TikTok account behind the video, @yazi_gaza. He has published several AI-generated videos related to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Instrumentalization by pro-Israeli accounts

If these videos were used to illustrate the suffering of the population there, they were also taken up by pro-Israeli X accounts such as Gazawood, already implicated by the Israeli NGO Fake Reporter, for regularly practicing disinformation. The Gazawood account shared this video showing the anomalies in order to discredit the reality of the humanitarian emergency, accompanied by the caption “Israel blocks access to good AI technologies in Gaza”.

Still related to the floods, the same account published another video where we see women standing near a wall with their lower bodies in the water. The anomalies visible in this content, such as one of the women whose head is turned 180 degrees, are proof of the use of artificial intelligence. The ironic caption reads “Israel's cruelty is unprecedented in the history of humanity 💔”.

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The presence of inauthentic videos to mock the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip has created a climate of distrust on social networks, concerning the images of the floods. In the publication below, an account, regularly sharing content labeled as far-right, calls into question the veracity of the videos used by France Info.

In addition, some Internet users contradict the reality of the floods, questioning the weather in the Gaza Strip. However, according to Meteoblue's meteorological history, there was rainfall in Gaza on November 6 and 7.

“Every year, the winter in Gaza is harsher, more and more difficult to bear”

Contacted by our editorial team, Pat Griffiths is spokesperson for the branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem. With his teams, he warns of the consequences of winter and recurring heavy rains on the living conditions of displaced people in Gaza.

"Thousands of people in Gaza depend on tents for shelter. They will therefore feel the full force of the cold of winter. This is the fourth winter they have experienced since the escalation of the armed conflict in 2023. The widespread flooding that we are observing represents a major risk in terms of disease. Population health, sanitation and hygiene become key issues from a humanitarian point of view. When the sewage system in Gaza simply no longer works, it means that the wastewater produced by the inhabitants has nowhere to flow. However, every year, in winter, this water retention area overflows and affects the populations who live in tents nearby. These people then contract preventable illnesses linked to the contaminated water and go to the doctor. One of my colleagues told me that she had just treated a one-month-old infant suffering from giardiasis. difficult to bear. And this is explained by the absence of a real lasting response to relieve the suffering of the population and put in place, for example, more lasting accommodation solutions. I therefore do not want to minimize the situation just because it is nice in Gaza or that the sky is blue. The Palestinians in Gaza feel the winter much more harshly than the rest of us. long than we can imagine."

In response to this situation, the official account of the State of Israel published a message on X stating, ironically: “Contrary to popular belief, Israel does not control the weather.”

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