Israel–Iran: Monitoring updates, verifying damage and debunking misinformation

With international media unable to report on the ground from Iran, social media and other open sources provide critical insight into the unfolding situation – but AI images and misinformation are also widespread.

On 13 June 2025, Israel launched strikes on more than 100 major targets in Iran, including nuclear facilities, missile sites and senior military commanders and nuclear scientists. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the strikes marked a “declaration of war”. 

The situation has escalated since then; Israel has continued to strike targets in Iran. Iran has launched ballistic missiles at Israel, focusing on Tel Aviv and Haifa. As CIR publishes this article, the two sides continue to trade attacks, marking the sixth consecutive day of fighting. 

In Iran, at least 224 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since Friday 13 June 2025, Iran’s health ministry has reported. Iranian missiles have also penetrated Israel’s Iron Dome defence system. According to reports, the number killed in Israel since Friday has risen to 24.

Strike targets state media

On 16 June 2025, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued an urgent evacuation notice in Persian for Tehran’s District 3, in the northeast of the city. It is home to 330,000 people and covers around 4.5% of the city’s area. The Iranian state broadcaster, the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), as well as government ministries and foreign embassies, are also located in this district.

Footage of a broadcast from IRIB on 16 June 2025, part of Iran’s state TV broadcaster, shows the moment debris from an alleged Israeli strike fell into the studio. 

Before the strike, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said that the state broadcaster was “about to disappear”. Shortly afterwards, the defence minister confirmed the attack. 

After the IRIB central building was struck by Israeli airstrikes on 16 June 2025, images shared to Telegram by Iranian media outlet Young Journalists Club show a large fire on the premises. 

Verifying damage to multiple Iranian sites

Satellite imagery reveals clear signs of damage to Iranian locations targeted by recent Israeli strikes, according to CIR’s Director of Investigations, Ben Strick. 

Planet Labs imagery captured on 12 and 14 June 2025 shows the Natanz Nuclear Facility near Deh Zireh (33.725987, 51.723155) before and after the recent strikes.

According to the Associated Press, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, stated on 16 June 2025 that there is a possibility of both radiological and chemical contamination at the site, although they added that radiation levels outside the complex were normal at the time of comment.

Maxar satellite imagery captured on 3 and 14 June 2025 shows damage to the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center on the outskirts of Isfahan (32.579616, 51.826159).

Damage can also be seen to a number of structures at the Iranian Air Force base in Tabriz, including to hangars and buildings (38.128214, 46.256338). The below Planet satellite imagery was taken on 3 June 2025 and 15 June 2025.

The Tabriz International Airport  (38.128294, 46.246379) was also damaged in the strikes. The below Planet imagery is from 13 and 14 June 2025, and shows significant damage to the runway and other nearby structures. 

Satellite imagery taken by Sentinel-2 on 15 June 2025 also shows a large fire burning at an oil refinery south of Tehran (35.544245, 51.433735).

Misinformation and AI images

With many international journalists unable to report from the ground in Iran, social media has played a pivotal role in surfacing information in real-time. However, misinformation and AI images have also been widespread, with some false or misleading imagery viewed hundreds, or even thousands, of times. 

This post and image – viewed 197.4K times at the time of writing – claims to show explosions and fire in Haifa, Israel. It is posted by a popular account “MyLordBebo”, which has over 600k followers and claims to share “anti fake news” content, according to its bio. 

But a simple reverse image search indicates it is an old image shared in the wrong context – this is Beirut in 2024, not Haifa in 2025. 

Other old images repackaged as recent have been shared. For example, a video analysed by German news outlet DW (archived post here) claimed to show strikes on Tehran, but a reverse image search revealed it was first shared eight months ago, and was likely part of a series of Iranian missiles directed at Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in October 2024. 

[GRAPHIC] Footage shared on 1 October 2024 shows an adult casualty after being hit and crushed by a section of an Iranian missile in the Palestinian Authority al-Nuway’imah military base, north of Jericho in the central West Bank. Further details can be found in the CIR Israel-Gaza Conflict Map, under incident IPIN1750.

Old footage is often recycled both intentionally and accidentally during conflicts. As DW points out, the same video claiming to show strikes on Tehran was also posted during the recent escalation between India and Pakistan. 

On 17 June 2025, a video was posted on X of CNN coverage announcing an Iranian missile attack on Israel. It has since been deleted. The running news banner at the bottom of the broadcast reveals that the footage is in fact from five weeks before the 2024 US Election, when Iran launched a missile attack on Israel on 1 October 2024. The post, shared by American political commentator Jackson Hinkle, garnered nearly 300k views and was reposted 1.2k times. 

AI images have also been circulating. This image was shared on X on 15 June 2025. It claims to show a shot-down F-35 fighter jet and even credits a photographer.

But by comparing the length of the fighter jet with other nearby objects and structures, like buildings and cars, we can see that the scale is not quite right. 

By running a reverse image search, we can also see the same image shared 13 years ago on what appears to be a Russian web page.

Not all inaccurate posts we have seen are intentionally misleading, however. For example, this X post, seen below, claims to show a map of fires in Iran following Israeli airstrikes. Though it is possible that some of these fires were caused by recent airstrikes, CIR investigators noted that industrial activity would also be included on this map, as well as more low-level fires.

These maps, from NASA FIRMS, show fires detected in Iran over a period of 24 hours on 18 May 2025 (below, top) and fires detected in Iran over 24 hours on 18 June 2025 (below, bottom). 

The number of fires detected on the day in May is relatively similar to that detected on 18 June. This indicates that a significant number of the fires in the post by “Uncensored News” – claimed to be caused by the recent airstrikes – may have resulted from other activity that causes a spike in temperatures.

Popular accounts spreading unverified claims

Accounts with large follower bases, such as Hinkle’s, which has 3.2 million followers on X, have been posting continuously over the past few days about the conflict.

These accounts post at high volume and frequency, often mixing potentially true information with misleading content, AI-generated images, and in some cases, disinformation. 

Hinkle has also been posting claims which CIR verified to be false. For example, on 16 June 2025, he posted that “Another CHINESE CARGO PLANE is en route to IRAN”, with a screenshot of a flight tracker showing a flight from China heading in the direction of Iran. The post has so far been viewed 1.4 million times. 

CIR used FlightRadar24 to confirm that the flight, which departed from Zhengzhou, China, in fact landed in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, on 16 June 2025, before flying to London the next day. The appearance of the flight over Iran, captured in Hinkle’s post, was due to the website losing the location of the plane when flying over Turkmenistan, and therefore estimating a location based on its previous speed and direction.

Many of us will be keenly watching our social media feeds and news channels for what happens next, as clashes between Iran and Israel continue to intensify. But the high level of engagement on some of the misleading posts we have detected is concerning. Approaching images and claims with caution, cross-checking information, and attaining news from reputable sources remains critical. 

We previously wrote about how to analyse breaking news events using open source (OSINT) techniques – read that explainer here.