A widely shared post falsely identifies an Iranian missile facility as Israel’s Weizmann Institute. DW Fact check investigates the claim.
There might be a ceasefire betweenIran and Israelat the moment, butthe battle over informationis far from over. As tensions simmer down on the ground, misleading posts and manipulated visuals continue to circulate online, fueling confusion and misinformation.
On June 13, Israellaunched attacksonover 100 targets in Iran, including nuclear and military sites. In retaliation, Iran sent over 150 drones and missiles toward Israel. As news of the US strikes spread, social media platforms were quickly flooded with dramatic videos purporting to show the bombings. Many of these, however, are either digitally manipulated or falsely repurposed.
Since the beginning of the ceasefire between Israel and Iran, the mis- and disinformation shared online has become less, but has not stopped.
One such viral claim involves a satellite image allegedly showing the aftermath of an Iranian missile strike on Israel's Weizmann Institute. ButDW Fact checkreveals a very different story.
Claim:This post on X, with over 50,000 views at the time of writing, claims to show the Weizmann Institute in Israel after a missile strike by Iran.
The image does not show Iran's counterattack on Israel, as it alleges, but instead depicts exactly the opposite—damage caused by Israel's attacks on Iran.
Through a reverse image search, we found multiple sources (e.g.,hereandhere) citing that the exact location isIran's Tabriz base, an important missile facility in the northwest of the country.
OnGoogle Maps, we can verify that the coordinates 38.258861, 46.151618 show the same area as the one pictured in the claim.
The visual cues, such as the triangle-shaped area and the locations of buildings and roads, match exactly.
The American space technology company Maxar Technologies released the satellite image.
The composite image below, also from Maxar Technologies, compares the view of the base intact on May 29 and damaged on June 17, 2025.
One of the targets hit during Iran's retaliatory attacks on June 15 was indeed the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
The institute is aglobal research centerfocusing on different scientific disciplines. However, this image does not show that attack or its aftermath.
On Google Maps, it can be located with the coordinates 31.90393623598832, 34.80802076817506.
The pictured area looks very different from the one in the claim and includes a much more densely built infrastructure.
Nicolas Hammerschlag Vicuna contributed to this article.
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