Clip of Israeli soldiers mocking Indonesia's Gaza offer is AI-generated
- Published on November 14, 2025 at 09:54
- Updated on November 14, 2025 at 09:58
- 2 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto told the United Nations in September the world's most populous Muslim-majority country is prepared to deploy at least 20,000 troops as peacekeepers to Gaza. Social media posts that surfaced following his remarks shared a video supposedly showing Israeli soldiers mocking the offer. However, an analysis of the clip found it was made with AI.
"An interview with Israeli military about Indonesia sending its army to Palestine for peace in the Middle East," says Indonesian-language text overlaid on a TikTok video shared October 29, 2025.
The post, which has gained more than 1.8 million views, shows a soldier being interviewed.
"If Indonesia sends 20,000 of its military to the Gaza strip," he says, to which a man offscreen responds, "We the Israel military are not afraid."
Other soldiers could then be seen in the background laughing.
"The Israeli military stated that they are not afraid of the presence of 20,000 Indonesian soldiers in the Gaza Strip," the video's caption says.
Similar posts started circulating on Facebook and YouTube after Prabowo told the UN General Assembly on September 24 that Indonesia is willing to send troops to Gaza to safeguard any future peace deal in the Palestinian territory (archived link).
US President Donald Trump has since brokered a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, which has largely halted the war that erupted after Hamas's surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 (archived link).
Comments to the circulating posts indicate some social media users believed the footage is genuine.
"Indonesia is also not afraid of Israel," one wrote. Another said: "They're honestly scared, that's why they talk like that."
A reverse image search on Google surfaced a digital label that said the clip was "Made with Google AI".
The ability to detect AI-generated images is based on Google's SynthID technology, which was launched by its DeepMind AI lab in 2023 (archived here and here).
A Google spokesperson earlier told AFP when a SynthID watermark is detected, it indicates that "the image has been generated or modified with AI".
At the bottom right corner of the clip, white text is also visible which reads, "Sidiq vlog".
A keyword search traced the video to an October 28 post on a Facebook page that describes itself as an "AI content creator company".
AFP reached out to the owner of the account, which regularly publishes AI-generated videos and images, but did not get a response.
An analysis of the video found visual inconsistencies that are artefacts of AI.
Distorted figures can be seen on the background -- and some soldiers just appear and vanish.
One soldier with a rifle slung on his shoulder also appears to have three hands.
More of our coverage of misinformation swirling around the Gaza war can be found here.
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