Viral image shows funeral of girls killed in Israeli strike on elementary school in Iran’s Minab city

RATING JUSTIFICATION

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is false.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a keyword search to trace the original image and forensically analysed the content with AI detection tools.

Multiple Pakistani accounts on social media platforms X and Instagram shared an image on March 3, 2026, claiming that it shows the funeral prayers of girls killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school in Iran. However, the photo is AI-generated.

On February 28, 2026, Israel struck the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in the southern Iranian city of Minab, killing 165 schoolgirls and staff. The attack on the school, which came after the United States and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, appears to be the worst mass casualty event of the US-Israeli-led bombing campaign on Iran so far.

Israel’s military has claimed it was “not aware” of any US or Israeli strike on any school in Iran. Meanwhile, the US Central Command said it was “looking into” reports of “civilian harm resulting from ongoing military operation”.

HOW IT STARTED

On March 3, an X user, who calls himself a Pakistani journalist in the bio, shared an image showing people sitting around bodies wrapped in white shrouds.

“In Iran, the collective funeral prayer was offered for 160 innocent children martyred in the school attack, the atmosphere filled with grief,” he wrote in the caption. The post garnered 704,000 views.

Naya Pakistan, a digital media platform, also shared the same photo with the following caption: “The collective funeral prayers for 160 innocent children martyred in the attack on a school in Iran have been offered … where are the Nobel Peace Prize winners?”

The post gained 34,300 views.

Subsequently, the image was widely shared on X, as can be seen here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The photo was also shared on Instagram with the same claim, as seen here and here; collectively gathering 11,100 likes.

Daily Pakistan, an Urdu-language newspaper, also published the image on its website with a story on the funeral prayers of the victims of the Minab school attack.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality and keen public interest in the conflict between the US, Israel and Iran.

A reverse image search was conducted to check whether the photograph was shared by any credible international or Iranian media outlets in their reporting of the funeral, but yielded no results.

A closer analysis of the image revealed visual inconsistencies; firstly, the photoframes placed next to two bodies are exactly the same. Secondly, the hand of the grieving man — on the top left of the photo — and areas where skin meets fabric show slight blending distortions, a known weakness in AI image generation.

A forensic analysis of the image showed that AI detection tool Truth Scan flagged it as having an AI probability of 97 per cent. Similarly, Undetectable AI gave the photo a score of being 3pc real, adding that it was likely created using AI.

Further investigation yielded a YouTube video posted by TRT World, dated March 3, 2026, featuring scenes from the funeral of those killed in the school. It showed a mass gathering of people dressed in black and holding photos of the killed children, while bodies covered in white shrouds could be seen from an aerial view.

Similarly, none of the photos from the funeral carried by media outlets, such as Anadolu Agency, Al Jazeera and others, resembled the viral image, as seen below.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: FALSE

The claim that a viral image shows the funeral of girls killed in an Israeli strike on a school in Iran’s Minab city is false.

The image is AI-generated.

EVIDENCE AND REFERENCES:

March 3, 2026, TRT World YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1CpOIs6bEs

March 3, 2026, Anadolu Agency report:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/pg/photo-gallery/funeral-held-for-children-who-lost-their-lives-in-us-israeli-attack-on-iranian-primary-school/0

March 3, 2026, Al Jazeera report:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/3/iran-holds-mass-funeral-for-girls-staff-killed-in-us-israel-school-attack