Israel and Iran exchange words along with weapons

Iran’s state television network was broadcasting live when an Israeli strike hit the building. Credit: Iranian State TV, via IRIB

Sahar Emami, an anchorwoman for Iran’s state-owned television network, was in the middle of a live news broadcast when an Israeli strike hit the network’s headquarters in Tehran. She hurried offscreen as dust and debris rained down but resumed reporting from another studio minutes later.

Israel Defense Forces confirmed the strike on the broadcasting network, saying that it had targeted a “communication center that was being used for military purposes by the Iranian Armed Forces…under the guise of civilian activity” after warning residents of the area to evacuate. Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz referred to the television station as Iran’s “propaganda and incitement broadcasting authority.”

The attack was the most obvious example of an information war in which Israel and Iran are pushing their own narratives and attempting to shut down opposing ones—sometimes with military force. The war of words, coupled with a flood of fast-breaking news and viral images on social media, has left many people struggling to find accurate information.

Echoes of 2024. The current Israel-Iran war has some similarities to conflicts that occurred last year. On April 1, 2024, Israel bombed an Iranian consulate in Syria, killing seven military officers. Within two weeks, Iran responded by seizing a ship leased by a company with Israeli connections and launching missile strikes on Israel. Israel then retaliated with limited strikes in Iran and Syria before the conflict subsided.

In early October, Iran launched about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. Israel responded with retaliatory strikes later that month.

Those earlier clashes included exchanges of media narratives as well as lethal weapons. In one glaring example, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) released a statement announcing that the IRGC Aerospace Force had responded to “Israeli crimes” with successful missile and drone strikes on targets inside Israel. “This announcement was made before those projectiles had even entered Israeli airspace, suggesting an intent to use the operation for propaganda, irrespective of the actual military outcome,” according to a Stimson Center report on how Iran and Israel use media and propaganda to shape reality.

A strategy for surprise. Governments, news agencies, and individuals put their spin on the 2024 events as they unfolded. This time around, however, the information manipulation apparently began before the first missile was launched.

An unnamed Israeli official told The Times of Israel that Israel and the United States collaborated on a misinformation campaign that gave Iran’s leaders a false sense of security and left them unprepared for Israel’s surprise attack. Unnamed officials “leaked” details of a phone conversation between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump to an Israeli television channel, which then reported (incorrectly, as it turned out) that Trump had asked Netanyahu not to attack any nuclear sites and had postponed discussion of a military strike while nuclear talks with Iran were still happening.

Netanyahu also made a public announcement of “significant progress” in hostage talks with Hamas, which was not true and was intended to make Iran’s leaders think that Israel was focused on the hostage situation in Gaza, rather than on striking Iran.

The news report on how Israel misinformed and manipulated the media is itself difficult to independently verify, because it relied on anonymous sources. But if it is accurate, Israel not only fooled Iran but also made it harder for people to trust what they read and hear from news sources.

Access to information has also been curtailed in the current conflict. In Iran, the government has shut down or slowed down some internet connections, virtual private networks (VPNs), mobile data networks, and messaging apps such as WhatsApp. The Iranian government also told citizens to delete WhatsApp from their phones, claiming that the app helps Israel “identify and target individuals.” Meta, the company that owns WhatsApp as well as Facebook and Instagram, denied that WhatsApp tracks personal messages or precise locations of users.

Ostensibly to protect the public from Israeli cyberattacks and make it harder for Israel to carry out covert operations, these actions mean that the government is restricting what Iranians can learn from sources outside the country—and potentially making it harder for them to receive evacuation warnings. The restrictions also make it harder for Iranians to share information about the locations and scope of damage inflicted by Israel.

“Lots of crazy stuff.” With the advent and increasing sophistication of AI, it’s often difficult to discern whether images and videos shared on social media are accurate and real. Social media is fertile ground for spreading propaganda that masquerades as information.

On X (formerly known as Twitter), numerous images said to be from the Israel-Iran conflict have turned out to be fake or unrelated to the current conflict. For example, a nighttime photo showing fires and smoke has been shared on X as evidence of Iranian missile strikes on Tel Aviv, but the fact-checking website D-Intent Data identified the photo as an image circulated from the Russia-Ukraine war. The company has labeled other imagery, such as a video purporting to show an Iranian military convoy transporting large missiles on a mountain road, as AI-generated fakes. (It’s worth noting that D-Intent Data is based in India, which is allied with Israel, and its fact-checking focuses on Iranian narratives.)

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ANALYSIS: Fake

FACT: A video showing a convoy of military trucks transporting large missiles along a narrow, winding mountain road is being shared with the claim that it depicts real footage of the Iranian military amid the ongoing tensions between Israel and Iran. (1/3) pic.twitter.com/VzZOgXmaxR

— D-Intent Data (@dintentdata) June 18, 2025

The US-based fact-checking website Snopes has debunked several widely circulated images and videos. A video of Tel Aviv “burning” from an Iran missile strike, for example, is a miscaptioned video that was posted on the internet at least a month before the latest conflict between Israel and Iran began.

Snopes deemed an image purporting to be an Israeli F-35 fighter jet shot down by Iran “inconsistent with the actual dimensions of such a fighter jet” and concluded it was probably AI-generated or digitally altered. Snopes also reported that video footage of Iranian forces downing Israeli fighter jets was “not authentic.”

Iran has shot down a D-35 (deluxe edition of the F-35) pic.twitter.com/3rbNCQxNEa

— AlphaFoX (@Alphafox78) June 15, 2025

In an article about unverified footage spreading virally online, Euronews analyzed a video widely viewed on TikTok that claims to show destruction caused by Israeli airstrikes on Iran. The analysis points out odd details that reveal the footage to be AI-generated.

As US Vice President JD Vance wrote in a lengthy June 17 post about the situation in Iran, “there’s a lot of crazy stuff on social media.”

Even official sources are not completely trustworthy. US press reports on fatalities, damage estimates, and other claims made by Israel and Iran typically come with a disclaimer that the claims “could not be immediately verified.” Both countries have been caught misrepresenting the facts.

For example, the Israeli military’s version of a March 2025 incident in which troops in Gaza fired on Palestinian emergency vehicles and killed 15 aid workers was not consistent with a video later found on the cellphone of one of the dead paramedics.

And in Iran last year, the state TV service aired old video footage from a fire in Chile and claimed that it depicted destruction inflicted on Israel by an Iranian missile and drone attack. Shayan Sardarizadeh, the senior journalist at BBC Verify who spotted that fake,

Sardarizadeh had this to say about a dramatic image of falling missiles and smoke rising from burning buildings: “Sorry to disappoint the 11 million users who viewed this tweet and the 127,000 who liked it, but this is AI. It certainly isn’t Tel Aviv.”

Sorry to disappoint the 11 million users who viewed this tweet and the 127,000 who liked it, but this is AI. It certainly isn't Tel Aviv. https://t.co/8pRbuSBquT pic.twitter.com/1uWJcenKlk

— Shayan Sardarizadeh (@Shayan86) June 18, 2025

The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the state media company bombed by Israel, has threatened to arrest anyone sharing “fake news.” However, critics of the regime say that could include accurate reports on losses and damage caused by Israeli strikes. The station has in the past been criticized for airing confessions that political prisoners have allegedly been forced to make.

Journalists at risk. Journalist groups—including the International Federation of Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation—have condemned Israel’s attack on Iran’s state television channel. “News outlets, even propagandist ones, are not legitimate military targets,” said the Freedom of the Press Foundation in an online statement.

The Committee to Protect Journalists called the attack “appalling” and said Israel’s wars with Gaza and Iran have made this “the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.”

At least four journalists and media workers have been killed since Israel launched its military operation against Iran on June 13, according to the International Federation of Journalists.

Rumors circulating in Israel have accused some foreign journalists of working for Iran. The Committee to Protect Journalists said it “documented at least eight separate incidents on June 14 and 15 involving the harassment, obstruction, equipment confiscation, incitement, and, in some cases, forced removal by Israeli police, of at least 14 journalists. Most of the journalists work for Arabic-language outlets and were reporting from sites impacted by Iranian or Israeli strikes.”

It is unclear whether the missile exchanges will subside or intensify in the coming days. What is certain is that both sides will continue to advance their talking points in the media and on social media platforms. Narratives have become key weapons in the battle for allies, legitimacy, righteousness, and public opinion.