AI images falsely shared as aid boats bound for Gaza

A flotilla carrying humanitarian aid and activists left Barcelona for Gaza in late August with the aim of breaking Israel's blockade. A few days later, AI-generated images of a fleet of boats boasting Palestinian flags were passed off as the travelling vessels. But one of the pictures bears the watermark of Google's Gemini tool, while the ships in the AI images are different colours than those in AFP photos of the flotilla.

"Hundreds of volunteers of various nationalities and religions came from 44 united countries to sail to bring food and medical aid to the people of Gaza," reads a Malay-language Facebook post on September 3, 2025.

It features an image of a fleet of boats, each carrying an excessive number of Palestinian flags.

Similar posts were shared hundreds of times on Facebook and Instagram.

Another image with a different view of the flag-laden boats also circulated, with one of the vessels boasting a banner that read "Flotilla Global Sumud" on its bow.

The caption says it showed "hundreds of volunteers from 44 countries carrying food and medicine to Gaza while putting their lives on the line".

The images spread after the Global Sumud Flotilla's fleet departed Barcelona on August 31 with around 20 boats carrying aid and activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg (archived link).

The group aims to break through Israel's blockade of Gaza, where the United Nations has declared famine in parts of the territory and warned that 500,000 people face "catastrophic" conditions (archived link).

Organisers said two of its boats that were set to depart from Tunisia were struck by drones in early September, before setting off for Gaza on September 13 (archived here and here).

However, both circulating images are AI-generated.

A Google reverse image search found images were labelled "Made with Google AI" in its "About this image" feature.

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 star icon on the bottom right of one of the images also indicates it was generated using Google's AI assistant Gemini (archived link).

AFP photos of the flotilla also show the boats have black or white hulls -- not blue as depicted in the AI-generated images.

None of the vessels carried banners reading "Flotilla Global Sumud".

AFP has previously debunked false claims about the war in Gaza here.