As news stories detail starvation in Gaza, people expressed hope upon seeing social media images of what looked like a civilian-led effort in Egypt.
“Egyptian youth who put some food, Baby formula, rice, and flour in bottles and threw them into the sea, hoping it would reach Gaza,” one July 24 X post’s caption read. The images also appeared on X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
Another set of photos appeared to show young people wading in the water holding bottles. “What pains me the most is seeing some people trying to help the people of Gaza with whatever they can,” the caption read. “They put food in a sealed bottle and throw it into the sea, hoping the currents will carry it to Gaza.”
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, one in three people in Gaza “hasn’t eaten for days.” Legitimate news reports showed some Egyptians taking action. But the images in the aforementioned social media posts aren’t authentic. They were generated with artificial intelligence.
In one image of multiple people handling bottles, a thumb appeared to bend awkwardly. An image of the bottle floating on the sea also appeared unrealistic — it wouldn’t be that buoyant if filled with food. Reverse-image search showed no credible sources using these photos.
(Images via X)
In the photos, many hands appear distorted. One pair of hands appeared to merge into a bottle. And bottles seemed to be merging with one another. Two images also showed a watermark of Grok, X’s AI chatbot.
(Images via X)
The images were shared on social media July 24, the same day AJ+, part of the Al Jazeera Media Network, published a video that included the text, “Egyptians are throwing plastic bottles filled with food into the sea, hoping they reach Gaza.” The video showed a man throwing bottles into the water and children talking about their idea of bringing food to Palestinians through the sea. Turkish public broadcaster TRT World also shared the video of a man throwing the bottles.
This real-life event made the AI-generated images seem plausible, as reflected in responses from Grok.
When an X user asked Grok if the images in the X posts were AI-generated, it replied, “No, these images are not AI-generated. They show a real event from July 24, 2025, where Egyptian youth threw bottles filled with baby formula and food into the sea from Sinai, hoping currents would carry them to Gaza amid the ongoing crisis.”
It mistakenly repeated this conclusion in other instances.
These images do not show Egyptian youth throwing food-filled bottles into the sea hoping to reach Gaza. They’re AI-generated. We rate them False.
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.
