In protest of Israel’s ongoing illegal blockade of Gaza, the Global Sumud Flotilla, a naval initiative by international human rights activists to deliver aid, began its journey towards Gaza from Barcelona, Spain, on August 31. Subsequently, between September 13 and 15, more vessels carrying aid joined the fleet from Tunisia, the Italian island of Sicily, and the Greek island of Syros. However, due to Israeli obstruction, none of the ships in the said convoy were able to reach the Gaza Strip. In this context, a video has recently been circulated on the social media platform Facebook, claiming to be video footage of the Global Sumud Flotilla.

See such videos circulated on Facebook here (Archive) and here (Archive).

See the same video circulated on YouTube here (Archive).

See a post circulated on Facebook using a screenshot of the video here (Archive).

Fact-check

An investigation by the Rumor Scanner team found that the viral video claiming to be footage of the Global Sumud Flotilla is not real. In fact, a video created using artificial intelligence or AI technology has been circulated with the said claim.

A reverse image search of several keyframes of the viral video led to the same video being circulated on a TikTok account named Mystic Vibes on September 18. A review of the video in the said post shows that it has an AI-generated content label, which indicates that the content circulated on TikTok was created with the help of AI or artificial intelligence.

Subsequently, to confirm whether the video in question was created with the help of artificial intelligence, it was tested on the AI content detection platform Hive Moderation. The test showed a 99 percent probability that it was created with AI.

Additionally, a review of the said TikTok account found several AI-generated videos circulated on the issue of Palestine and the Global Sumud Flotilla. See some of these videos here, here, and here.

Therefore, an AI-generated video has been circulated with the claim of being a video of the Global Sumud Flotilla; which is completely false.