Scottish Museum’s 3D Models Used in Israeli Military Propaganda Videos

A 3D model of a boat building workshop created by the Scottish Maritime Museum was featured in propaganda videos produced by the Israel Occupying Forces (IOF), an investigation spanning several months by +972 Magazine and Local Call along with the research collective Viewfinder, the Swiss network SRF, and the Scottish outlet The Ferret revealed on Wednesday.

The investigation analyzed dozens of Israeli army animations which were used to justify Gaza strikes and amplified by international outlets, and discovered digital assets sourced not from classified intelligence but from commercial libraries and content creators.

It shows many of Israel’s recent 3D animations used by the IOF, which are portrayed as intelligence-based visualizations of underground tunnels, command centers, and hospitals. In fact, it incorporates reused commercial and public-domain 3D assets, fictional elements, and embellishments. 

A parking lot in Washington state, 3D scans from a Scottish boat building workshop, and commercial storefront kits designed for video games — all have been inserted, without credit, into animations portrayed as “illustrations” of Hamas bunkers or Iranian weapons facilities.

A New Visual Language of War

Graphics and 3D animation were among the Israeli army's weapons in misleading global public opinion and justifying its genocidal crimes. The IOF has used the animated videos to illustrate its operations and depict fictional Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iranian sites.

Since Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, the IOF has created over 40 propaganda-style animations, distributed via Israel’s official channels and widely circulated by international media outlets such as the BBC, Daily Mail, Fox News, and CNN.

On October 27, 2023, the Israeli military published an animated video purportedly exposing what was hidden beneath Gaza’s largest medical facility, Al-Shifa Hospital. The video featured sleek 3D graphics illustrating tunnels, bunkers, and a Hamas command center.

The video was shared by the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his profile. It garnered tens of millions of views and was later rebroadcast by numerous international media outlets, each reiterating Israel’s assertion that the hospital functioned as Hamas’s “main operations base” in Gaza.

 

However, no such base was ever found. In fact, the command room shown in the video was not new — it had appeared over a year earlier in a separate animation released by the Israeli army, which purported to depict a tunnel beneath a U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school in Gaza. 

Since then, the IOF’s Spokesperson’s Unit has produced dozens of similar videos portraying alleged militant sites in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.

Scans of Parking Lots, Antennas, and Pipes Were Repurposed as Hamas and Iranian Military Sites

Over time, these animations developed a distinct and consistent visual identity — typically opening with satellite imagery, transitioning into 3D visualizations, and then revealing X-ray wireframe view of interiors or underground spaces, interspersed with real drone footage of bombings or airstrikes.

The blending of these elements creates an illusion of seamless factual continuity. Yet rather than uncovering hidden truths — as Israeli military officials claim and international media echoes — these visualizations actually obscure them.

The Israeli military promoted these videos as intelligence-based illustrations. In truth, however, much of what they portrayed was partially sourced from artists who have no connection to the conflict.

The investigation found that over half of the army’s animations incorporated 3D assets sourced from external creators. In total, more than 50 distinct third-party assets were identified, appearing hundreds of times across animations depicting locations from Gaza to Iran.

Many of these 3D models were sourced by the military from online digital asset marketplaces such as KitBash3D — which sells complete packs of military outposts or storefronts for about $100–$200 — and Sketchfab, where items like cutter machines can be downloaded for free under Creative Commons licenses.

Others came from 3D artists such as Ian Hubert, who share their creations with paid subscribers on platforms like Patreon. The well-known American creator has produced photogrammetry scans of utility poles, parking lots, and street corners in his hometown of Port Orchard, Washington, as well as original renderings of pipes and antennas — all accessible to subscribers for about $7 a month. Over 30 of these assets have since appeared in Israeli military animations depicting Gaza high-rises, tunnels in Beirut, and nuclear sites in Iran.

Scottish Maritime Museum Featured in Israeli Military Propaganda Videos

The Israeli military has also utilized 3D assets shared online by the Scottish Maritime Museum under an unrestricted Creative Commons license. Established in 2014, the Scottish Boatbuilding School at Irvine’s Maritime Museum provides education in both traditional and modern boat building. 

The museum uploaded a 3D model of its boat building workshop in 2019, including workbenches, cabinets, and a distinctive electricity box that appear in IOF animations of underground missile factories in Syria and Iran, which were used by the IOF to explain an undercover operation by the force to “dismantle an Iranian-funded underground precision missile production site” in Syria, in September 2024.

The electricity box was also used in an IOF video, which explains Israeli strikes near Tehran in June. The IOF’s accompanying post on X said: “More than 50 fighter jets attacked selected targets of the nuclear weapons program and missile component manufacturing sites in Tehran.”

More recently, following its early September airstrike on the Mushtaha Tower in Gaza City—part of its broader campaign targeting high-rises—the Israeli army released a 3D animation showing the building’s interior.

The analysis revealed that the animation incorporates multiple third-party assets, including elements from a 3D scan of the Scottish Maritime Museum’s boat building workshop, along with additional assets sourced from Hubert’s Patreon. These include a modeled electrical meter from Port Orchard and three distinct photogrammetry scans of parking lots, seemingly from Washington state.

In some instances, these “illustrations” take fabrication even further, substituting real locations with entirely invented settings. In September 2024, the Israeli army released an animation showing homes in southern Lebanon allegedly hiding missiles. The investigation traced the satellite image used in the video to the outskirts of the village of Yater.

However, a visit to the village revealed that no such streets or buildings exist — not due to Israeli airstrikes, which only hit a few sites in Yater. In fact, the houses shown in the video are completely fabricated, incorporating antennas from at least three distinct models found in Ian Hubert’s “Antenna Kit,” released on his Patreon in March 2021.

Moreover, Hubert's assets, created as decorations for cyberpunk cityscapes, are used especially widely in animations that the IOF released during their strikes on Iran in June.

The “Illustrations” Are Not Based On Verified Intelligence

These animations were produced by a specific team consisting of a handful of soldiers within the Israeli army Spokesperson Unit's production and media branch. Some of these soldiers spoke with +972 for the investigation, saying that they were instructed to simplify “everything.”

An analysis of 43 official IOF videos found recycled 3D environments, spatial inaccuracies, and assets lifted from unrelated artists and institutions. Soldiers who participated in creating these videos reveal that the army places greater emphasis on the animations’ aesthetic appeal than on their factual accuracy, with animators frequently exaggerating details to amplify perceived threats.

Former members refer to it as the “After Effects Cell,” a nod to the well-known Adobe motion graphics software. The unit is made up of motion designers, 3D modelers, and animators who mainly use Adobe tools but also incorporate open-source programs such as Blender.

A reservist who served in the unit during the ongoing war explained that the soldiers “have to sign a confidentiality agreement, then they receive the information and begin to work. Sometimes they receive a 3D model that intelligence has already prepared and work based on that foundation. They’re told, ‘This is the building, here’s a photo or video, on this and that floor there’s something,’ and then they [create animations] based on what they receive.”

“Some of the models are made [by the army] for the videos,” one former animator in the unit explained. “Others are taken from other places because they don’t have any intelligent significance. It serves the purpose.”

Another reservist who served in the early months of the war within a unit responsible for liaising with international entities said “They look sexy, they look professional, and obviously the average person doesn’t go down into the details. The models just make the military look more professional, like a high-tech company with cool diagrams and cool technology. So, whenever we had them, we would present them to explain why the IDF is [doing something].”

The Goal Is to “Undermine Credibility” and “Spread Confusion”

The influence of these animations stems largely from their circulation strategy. They are released in coordination with Israel’s broader public messaging — sometimes following an airstrike, at other times just before one, and frequently to signal that a specific area may soon be targeted. Each clip is circulated across the army’s official Telegram, YouTube, Facebook, X, and Instagram accounts, often accompanied by a press briefing from the IOF Spokesperson.

In a TikTok post posted after Israel's June attacks on Iran, soldiers describe working weeks under “prime-minister-level secrecy” to prepare visuals.

One soldier noted: “They simply told us, "There will likely be an attack on Iran, and we need to be ready, and you are responsible for [making] the messaging for a video. Simplify everything: what’s going to happen, who is being attacked, what is being attacked, the locations, why.”

“We conducted ourselves in secret every day as if the attack were happening tomorrow,” another soldier recounts in TikTok. “When they finally told us, ‘We’re attacking Iran today,’ we understood the magnitude of it. And 30 hours later our products were everywhere … We translated everything into different languages. CNN and other really influential channels in the United States broadcast what we made.”

Western Coverage of Israel’s War on Gaza: Bias or Unprofessionalism?

Confronted with fast-moving events and limited access to verified visuals, international media outlets often rely on these animations — frequently without scrutiny. 

Ruth Maguire, The Scottish National Party (SNP) MSP for Cunninghame South, said it was “unsurprising that an army being deployed by their government in an illegal occupation and genocide of the Palestinian people is “using propaganda containing false and misleading claims.”

“What my constituents may be surprised and concerned by is that national broadcasters are picking it up and sharing it. I certainly don’t think anyone would imagine that our Maritime Museum assets were being used in this ongoing crime against humanity,” she added.

Meanwhile, Scottish Greens MSP Patrick Harvie condemned the IOF’s videos as propaganda designed to “justify their onslaught” on the people of Gaza.

“It is a sign of how little regard they have for the truth when they are incorrectly taking images from museums, and it underlines that we cannot trust a word that they say,” he said.

“When lies and misinformation are such a core part of an army’s strategy, it makes it all the more important that our governments take a stand and act to stop the atrocities that they are inflicting,” he added.

Professor Eyad Elyan, a Palestinian who specializes in AI and 3D modeling at Robert Gordon University, said that the findings were “deeply disturbing.”

He added that the videos using the 3D scans “align with Israel and the IDF’s long history of exploiting others’ resources and employing every means possible to promote baseless claims.”

Elyan said: “What is especially troubling, however, is how such fabricated content is uncritically accepted and amplified by mainstream media outlets.”

Legitimizing Military Assaults on Civilian Infrastructure

The Israeli army said in a statement to +972 that “all content is based on verified intelligence from a variety of sources” with the purpose of presenting “complex information in a clear and accessible visual manner — not to produce an exact reconstruction of every physical detail in the area.”

While experts have drawn parallels between the visual style of the army’s expanding animation campaign and the techniques used in visual and open-source investigations — methods that have gained traction in reporting from regions where traditional journalism faces significant challenges.

Elizabeth Breiner, head of programmes at the Forensic Architecture research center at Goldsmiths University of London said “I think the visual lexicon of open-source investigation is something that the Israelis have co-opted as a way to try to delegitimize [those investigations] and confuse.”

“These visuals are open about their status as something in between the real and the imaginary, but the real harm is that they stick with people well beyond the point after which something may have been functionally disproven,” she added.

The result is a communication campaign that mimics the appearance of forensic reconstructions to justify military strikes on civilian infrastructure. Since most of the sites depicted in the army’s animations are either off-limits to journalists and researchers or have already been destroyed, Israel’s illustrated claims largely evade independent verification.

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