Does a fake image mean the event never happened?

There is a collage of two images making its way around the social media that, if you judge by the images alone, you might conclude the whole story is made up

The X post in the image below made headlines and there is worldwide outcry against Israel for having killed a doctor’s nine out of her ten children. It has been liked, so far, 26K times and reposted 13K times. I saw the story retold on Facebook with the plea that Israel end this war because this family was one family too many to be killed in Israeli bombings.

However, one of these images is of a different family and the other seems to have been created by AI. Seeing this, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the whole story was fake and set about to write an article about it, ready to scorn the too-quick-to-swallow-everything-whole.

It’s good that I have someone with whom to consult — whether it is by opening his X account or by writing to him directly.

Yes, mis/disinformation researcher and media literacy lecturer, Tal Hagin, confirms that the image on the left is of a different family, as we can see from this post from last March:

And, according to Hagin, the photo on the right in the original X post above was created by AI. He writes that it:

. . . was likely used as an illustrative cover for the story by outlets, and eventually got interpreted as real. Here is another version of that AI image — possibly [by] the same creator:

I immediately wrote to Hagin to ask for more information, if he had any, and began to write this article. But as I explored the images he linked to in his post, and as I read articles in various mainstream news outlets, I saw that neither of the images in the original post at the top of this piece appeared in anything other than social media.

As I was wondering about that, Hagin responded to me. He wrote:

I don't believe it's fake - I think people rushed to find imagery, didn't do their due-diligence and unrelated imagery became the center of discussion.

I’ve seen nothing to suggest 9 children werent killed

I scrapped the opening lines and title of the article I thought I was writing and made an about-face.

Now I am sick about the nine children apparently really killed —- and, by the way, it is not certain yet whether or not her husband will survive his injuries.

I could editorialize and ask what children were doing in an area that was supposed to have been cleared of civilians. I won’t. You can read the comments under any of the social media posts to get all the variations on the anti-Israel and pro-Israel themes. That is not the point of this article.

The point of this article is that we have to be careful not to share things too quickly — On the one hand, we do not want to be sharing fake news as if it is real and, on the other hand, we do not want to be sharing real news as if it is fake because of the poor choice of accompanying images.

I am left with only one question: According to an article in The Guardian, Dr. Alaa al Najar is 35 years old; her husband, also a doctor, 40. The oldest child was 12 and the youngest six months. Adding to the credibility of the story, The Guardian gives the names of all the children. My question is, how did a 35-year-old woman ever give birth to ten children in twelve years and complete her medical education and training at the same time? I will be asking a doctor I know to see if it’s possible, but she’s sleeping now. I’ll get back to you with her answer in the morning after we’ve both had a chance to have our morning coffee.

Read the comment below the article added in response to this question. Mary F. Holley provides what seems a very plausible explanation.

I recommend more people check out Tal Hagin’s X account when you are not sure about what you are seeing online. I have seen him expose fakes and verify true images. He is invested only in the truth. And he is a Research Fellow at the NGO FakeReporter.

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