Storm Byron in Gaza: Trolls Use AI-Generated Videos to Falsely Deny the Disaster

As Storm Byron swept through the Gaza Strip in December, flooding displacement camps and exposing thousands of families to life-threatening conditions, social media platforms were flooded with videos claiming to document the unfolding disaster.

In this report, Misbar investigates the most widely shared videos linked to Storm Byron, verifies their origins, and examines how AI-generated content contributed to both misinformation and the denial of Gaza’s humanitarian catastrophe.

AI-Generated Video of Five Children Soaked in Rain

One of the most widely circulated videos linked to Storm Byron purported to show five children sheltering under a tent, yet soaked by rain and floodwaters. The clip was presented as genuine footage of the storm’s impact on displaced families in the Strip.

“Soaked, Cold, and Forgotten: Gaza in the Rain,” an X user captioned the video.

Misbar investigated the video and found visual glitches indicating AI-generated content. For example, the head of a child being held by another child appears unnaturally rotated. The child’s legs also appear unnaturally positioned.

Reverse image search revealed that the video was originally published by the TikTok account @mirha_binte_gaza1, which TikTok labeled as AI-generated content.

Upon observing the account’s content, Misbar’s team found that it exclusively publishes AI-generated material related to the wars in Gaza and Sudan.

AI-Generated Video Claims to Show Six Children Soaked in Gaza Floods

Another video circulated on social media, with claims that it showed six children soaked in floodwaters during Storm Byron in Gaza.

The video exhibits visual inconsistencies. The little girl’s hand overlaps with her yellow sweater, making the palm indistinguishable. The shoulder of the boy in the burgundy jacket seems unnaturally wide.

A reverse image search of the clip revealed that it was published on TikTok on December 10, 2025, by the account @mirha_binte_gaza1, which also shared the previous video. The platform labeled it as AI-generated content.

AI-Generated Video of Gaza Flooding Contains Anatomical Errors

A third video circulated online with claims that it showed five children shivering in the rain in worn-out clothes after their shelter was flooded in Gaza.

The video displays AI-generated anomalies, including an extra finger on one of the boys’ hands.

Through reverse image search, Misbar’s team traced the video back to its original upload on November 30 by the TikTok account @nimra.official04.

The account holds the display name “Mahar_binte_gaza,” similar to the @mirha_binte_gaza1 account that published the previous AI-generated videos.

The account is also known for sharing AI-generated content related to Gaza and Sudan wars.

Visual Inconsistencies Reveal Video of Soaked Children Was AI-Generated

In another widely shared clip, social media users circulated footage allegedly showing six children sheltering inside a fragile tent supported by a bamboo stick while floodwater poured in.

The left-wing Israeli political activist Magi Otsri shared a still from the video, criticizing Israel's right-wing Channel 14 for celebrating Gaza's winter storm flooding.

Misbar’s team also found the video to be AI-generated. The girl holding the child has four arms.

The points where water is leaking from the tent change throughout the video, further indicating that the video is AI-generated. At the beginning, two leaks appear in front of and to the left of the girl wearing a blue dress. Later, the leak in front of her disappears, then shifts to appear in front of the girl holding a baby in her arms. For a brief moment, two leaks appear in the footage: one in front of the girl in blue and another in front of the girl with the baby in her arms. At the end of the video, the leak in front of the girl in blue disappears.

This change cannot be explained by a shift in the camera’s position, as the filming angle moves only a few centimeters throughout the video — insufficient to cause the leak’s location to change in this way.

Network of Foreign TikTok Accounts Promotes AI-Generated Content

During Storm Byron, several TikTok accounts that specialize in publishing AI-generated crisis content played a central role in circulating misleading videos falsely presented as real footage from Gaza. Misbar’s investigation found that many of the viral clips depicting children soaked by flooding originated from accounts known for repeatedly posting AI-generated material related to humanitarian crises in Gaza and Sudan, often using emotionally charged imagery that increased the likelihood of resharing without verification.

Among the accounts identified were @nimra.official04, @mirha_binte_gaza1 — both of which shared two of the videos debunked in this report — @gaza_sodan, @yafi_gaza, and @ahte_gaza3.

Misbar’s team investigated each of these accounts and found that none of them were based in Palestine. According to TikMatrix results, the three accounts @mirha_binte_gaza1, @yafi_gaza, and @ahte_gaza3 are all based in Pakistan. The account @nimra.official04 is based in the U.S., while the account @gaza_sodan is based in Thailand.

How AI-Generated Content Fueled the Denial of Gaza’s Suffering

Once these videos circulated widely, they were counterproductive. Pro-Israel troll accounts cited the debunked AI content to dismiss genuine documentation of Gaza’s suffering, portraying real footage from the storm as fabricated or part of a broader fake narrative.

Responding to an AI-generated video that was circulated by Arabic social media accounts, the Gazawood account, often observed by Misbar for frequently framing Gaza-related content as staged, cited the video in two different posts, circling the visual AI glitch that resulted in an extra hand on the Gazan woman, then satirizing the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

X Community Notes, which offer crowdsourced fact-checking on misleading X posts, used Gazawood’s satirical quote to debunk the AI-generated video, treating the propagandist’s content as credible.

The denial and the satirizing of the suffering in Gaza during the storm extended to the Hebrew media. The Israeli news outlet Kikar HaShabbat framed the circulation of AI-generated videos as a coordinated “pro-Palestinian propaganda campaign,” claiming that fabricated content was deliberately produced to depict children in Gaza suffering in the rain, as authentic footage “no longer generates sufficient emotional impact.”

However, none of the accounts that originally published the AI-generated content were Palestinian, as previously revealed in this report.

In this way, the use of AI-generated content contributed to the denial of real humanitarian suffering, undermining credible reporting of the catastrophic results of Storm Byron, for which Israel’s war on Gaza was a central factor.

Gaza Flooding Leaves Fourteen Dead and Exposes Humanitarian Crisis

Storm Byron swept across the Gaza Strip on December 10, triggering widespread flooding, structural collapses, and exposure-related deaths among a population already devastated by more than two years of war and mass displacement.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security, at least 14 Palestinians were killed during the storm, including children and infants, as homes and makeshift shelters collapsed under heavy rain and strong winds.

Local authorities and medical staff reported a sharp rise in deaths linked to hypothermia and exposure. Hospitals documented cases of children dying after their tents flooded or after seeking shelter in roofless, bombed-out buildings. Doctors at Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital warned of increasing hospitalizations among children, the elderly, and people with chronic illnesses, as soaked clothing, lack of heating, and shortages of medicine compounded the dangers posed by the cold.

Human rights groups described the impact of Storm Byron as a foreseeable catastrophe rather than a natural disaster. The storm exposed the consequences of prolonged displacement, blocked aid, and the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, leaving Gaza’s population acutely vulnerable to predictable seasonal weather.

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