After Hamas Yahya Sinwar’s assassination, many AI-generated images and videos have been released regarding his final moments, providing the army of pro-Sinwar commentators online with a way to produce quick and slick images of their new hero.
In one short video, Sinwar is shown fighting in the rubble of Gaza with an AK-47, holding off Israeli tanks and infantry all by himself at the front.
In another image, he is shown sitting on a chair with an American-made M-16 next to him. In another image, Sinwar is depicted as a comic-book superhero leaping into battle with a rifle in one hand, reminiscent of a cover of Marvel’s X-Force comic book from the early 1990s.
Fans of Sinwar
It’s worth noting that the adoration for Sinwar is relatively new in these circles. Many of those who have come to adore Sinwar have done so within the last year since the October 7 massacre.
Some of them have come to adore him within the last week since he was killed. This is a unique phenomenon of people adopting a new hero. However, the hero they want to adopt is not the one that exists in real images from Sinwar’s life.
There are several well-known photos and videos of Sinwar, such as one of him posting with a child while holding a gun or another of him sitting in a chair amid ruins several years ago. That image is oddly consistent with how Sinwar met his end, sitting in a chair wielding a stick against a drone.
There is another real photo of Sinwar drawing a gun awkwardly from his pants. None of Sinwar’s real images and videos are the kind one could romanticize him. This is because Sinwar is a figure who is not heroic or romantic.
Sinwar’s history
From a relatively young age, he was engaged in violence and murder. He came to leadership in Hamas through the murder of Palestinians he accused of collaboration. In prison in Israel, he spoke about how he wanted to kill more people. Released into Gaza, he went straight back to his extremism.
Sinwar didn’t live a particularly interesting life. For backers of the Palestinian “cause,” he is one of the people chiefly responsible for destroying and isolating Gaza and ruining any idea of the two-state solution.
His whole life was against peace and against institution-building for Palestinians. For the pro-Palestinian crowd, this might have once been awkward since they pretended to be for two states.
However, since October 7, the pro-Palestinian crowd has shifted and become more extreme. It has also been joined by grifters abroad from the far left and far right who have adopted this cause. Many of those who adopt this cause do so out of hatred of Jews and support for the October 7 massacre.
However, they want their new hero, Sinwar, to be packaged in an image that can be adored.
AI-generated content
AI-generated video and images have come to help these people. Their sleek appearance and some inconsistencies indicate that they are AI-generated.
For instance, some images show Sinwar with an M-4 or M-16-style rifle. These types of rifles are rare in Gaza, even though they are more common in the West Bank, where they are trafficked from abroad.
One image shows Sinwar holding what appears to be an M-4 style rifle with some sort of military-style backpack, his arms bulging from having just left the gym after a day working his biceps. Sinwar, in real life, was skinny, and he didn’t have large biceps from a life that apparently spent most of the time underground and not at the gym. The AI-generated images bulk up Sinwar, adding probably 50 lbs onto his frame.
Then there is the comic book Sinwar, which shows him jumping through flames, his hands on his rifle, which in this case may be some kind of modified AK with a front grip. Here, Sinwar is again more healthy-looking than he was, wearing a tactical vest with extra ammo as he wades into battle.
One image shows Sinwar sitting in a chair in the ruined house where he was killed. But in this image, he is sitting upright, holding a generic-looking rifle from the barrel.
The rifle itself seems to have a lower assembly that comes from some generic idea of what a rifle looks like but actually depicts maybe a French MAS-49 from the Vietnam era. Another image shows Sinwar depicted in what appears to be either a bronze or copper sculpture, sitting on a couch holding an M-16-style rifle.
He also seems to have a bandolier of bullets wrapped around his chest, for a second weapon which is apparently not shown. This one is incredibly improbable. Yet, 600,000 people have viewed it.
The AI-generated images become even more improbable as one wades through them. One shows Sinwar in a house with his stick, sitting with his back to the wall as an Apache helicopter hovers, improbably, inside the house.
An M1Abrams American tank is also shown bursting through another room. Clearly, whoever made this must have asked the AI to create an image with a random tank and helicopter in it “in a house.” It’s not likely a helicopter could hover inside the house.
This didn’t stop 500,000 people from viewing the image. A different image shows Sinwar wandering in a field of flowers near the Dome of the Rock, carrying a pistol and wearing a military-style vest in a crisp white shirt. Some of the images don’t even seem to be Sinwar.
One of them depicts him as if he is in one of those advertisements selling expensive watches, with some black-and-white character that is then said to be Sinwar. Another image seems to be a kind of drawing but is likely also produced by AI, showing Sinwar in the house waiting for death while an IDF tank and a pack of hyenas assault him. It’s unclear who would have put into the AI prompt “add hyenas.”
Some of the images created to memorialize and lionize Sinwar are also signed as if they may have been made by an illustrator. It’s not clear in these cases if the images were partially produced with the assistance of AI or if someone drew them entirely.
In general, the images often copy historic covers or types of comic book drawings and styles, such as the neo-noir Sin City brand, suggesting they are not entirely original content.