TEHRAN — An image circulating on Facebook and X since October 26, 2026, purports to show Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman kissing the hand of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The posts presented the image as evidence of an extraordinary diplomatic gesture during a high-stakes week for Saudi-Iranian relations. One post on X drew around 63,000 views, and another around 27,000, with several of the accounts sharing it identified by investigators as pro-Houthi accounts. The image is not genuine: it is an AI-manipulated version of an older photograph, it does not show Prince Khalid bin Salman at all, and the gesture it depicts never happened.

The claim, as stated

The claim is specific: that during a meeting in Tehran, the Saudi defence minister kissed the Iranian president's hand. It is not a claim about the tone of Saudi-Iranian diplomacy in general, which has indeed been active this week. It is a claim about a particular person performing a particular gesture, and it can be tested against the original photograph and the record of who actually attended the meetings in question.

A real meeting, a false image

Part of why the image spread is that its setting felt plausible. On October 26, senior security officials from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye did meet President Pezeshkian in Tehran, and Prince Khalid bin Salman was among the Saudi delegation — a meeting covered in the web story on the Makkah Pact powers' Tehran talks. But no credible Saudi, Iranian or international outlet published the hand-kissing image or reported any such gesture, and a keyword search across those outlets turned up no record of it. A genuine moment of that kind, involving two of the region's most prominent leaders, would not exist only as a social media post.

The original photograph tells a different story

A reverse image search traced the viral image to an Arab News report published about the funeral procession of assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 3, 2026. The report said Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed El Khereiji attended the ceremony and met Iranian officials, including President Pezeshkian. The photograph accompanying that report closely resembles the viral image — the same background, officials in comparable attire — but with two decisive differences. First, the Saudi official in the original photograph is El Khereiji, not Prince Khalid bin Salman. Second, the original shows the two men shaking hands, not one kissing the other's hand. The same report, featuring the same image, was also published by the Saudi Gazette and the official Saudi Press Agency, confirming the original's provenance.

What the forensic checks found

Close inspection of the viral image found visual irregularities around the Saudi official's fingers and hand, as well as distortions around the Iranian president's cheek and neck — the kind of artefacts typical of AI editing. Multiple AI-detection tools pointed the same way: Hive Detect reported a 99 per cent likelihood that the image was AI-generated, while DeepAI and TruthScan each indicated around a 90 per cent likelihood that it had been edited. The combination of a traced original, a swapped identity, an altered gesture and consistent detector results leaves no reasonable doubt about the image's nature.

Our finding

The claim is False. The viral image is an AI-manipulated edit of a July 3, 2026 funeral photograph showing Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed El Khereiji shaking hands with President Pezeshkian. It does not show Prince Khalid bin Salman, and it does not show a hand being kissed. Readers should treat viral images from this week's Saudi-Iranian diplomacy with particular caution: the region's tensions, including the authorisation of Egyptian military support to Saudi Arabia against Houthi attacks, make it fertile ground for fabricated moments designed to inflame or flatter one side. More verified coverage is available in our Middle East section.