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Fearing denial and disinformation, Israel shows journalists raw footage of Hamas attacks
TEL AVIV (JTA) — On Monday morning, Roxane Runel posted a photograph to Instagram of two Israel military officers addressing a crowd of reporters in an auditorium. Behind them is a giant television screen.
“Press conference between the international media and the Israeli army after it disseminated images and recordings of the Oct. 7 attacks,” Runel, a reporter for France’s M6 television channel, wrote across the photo, touting an upcoming broadcast. “Why? What is at stake?”
Runel, who has reported from several countries, has already interviewed relatives of Israeli hostages held in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, which killed and wounded thousands. Yet in the middle of Monday’s screening of the attack footage, she was one of a number of journalists who stepped out early.
“It was too much,” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I knew coming here that the hardest thing for me would not be the images but the sound, because you can close your eyes if the images are too much.”
Runel was one of about 200 journalists who attended the screening, which the Israeli government billed as raw and unedited audio and video taken from Hamas terrorists’ body cameras and phones as they massacred communities on Israel’s border with Gaza. In addition to clips of Hamas attackers shooting people, the 43-minute compilation contained graphic images of children being murdered, bodies burned, civilians being mowed down and other atrocities.
Gruesome photos and videos have circulated online in the two weeks after the attack, along with harrowing accounts of the violence visited upon Israelis. The images have become so ubiquitous that Jewish day schools in the United States cautioned students to delete their social media apps to avoid seeing them, while journalists and other public figures have expressed ambivalence about sharing them.
The IDF has taken delegations of foreign journalists into some of the hardest-hit communities, with one spokesperson saying just days after the attack, “Walking through here is like Eisenhower walking through Bergen-Belsen and seeing the destruction and carnage. The world needs to witness this firsthand.”
Now, the Israeli government’s decision to broadcast the footage came as it is increasingly concerned that people are questioning the scale and depravity of Hamas’ massacre. Social media users and journalists alike have expressed skepticism about widespread reports and testimonies of the attack’s most harrowing details, often at the same time as they have sought to shift attention toward the escalating casualties of Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza, where it aims to depose Hamas.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this and I can’t believe that we as a country are having to do this,” said Eylon Levy, an Israeli government spokesman, in a video announcing the press conference. “As we work to defeat the terror organization that brutalized our people, we are witnessing a Holocaust denial-like phenomenon evolving in real time as people are casting doubt on the magnitude of the atrocities that Hamas committed against our people, and in fact recorded in order to glorify that violence.”
At the press conference, held at a military base north of Tel Aviv, chief IDF spokesperson Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military had “been thinking about this for a couple of days, whether to show it or not,” but decided that screening the footage served as a valuable reminder of the atrocities both for the international media covering the war and Israelis themselves.
“We will not let the world forget who we are fighting,” he said, adding that the footage helps Israelis “to understand ourselves what we are fighting for.”
In addition, IDF Maj. Gen. Mickey Edelstein told the reporters, the Israeli military has evidence it cannot show of sexual violence committed by the Hamas terrorists as well as evidence of links between Hamas and Iran.
He dispelled Hamas claims that terrorists unaffiliated with the group committed the atrocities, saying that the video shows proof that “the vast majority are Hamas” and that the perpetrators attacking civilians were dressed in full tactical gear. Written and other evidence the IDF has discovered, he added, shows that Hamas had planned “to bring hostages and keep families, in order that it would be much more painful.”
Many attendees gasped in horror at difficult elements of the footage, and some chose to exit the theater before the screening had finished. Runel said her personal “limit” was reached when listening to an audio clip of a call on WhatsApp between a Hamas terrorist and his parents, made via the stolen cellphone of an Israeli victim.
“He tells them on the phone — with a voice that is so ecstatic — he sounds like he’s out of his mind,” she said. “He was repeating the same thing over and over again, ‘I killed 10 of them.’ He was saying this as something he was really proud of and he wanted his parents to check the Whatsapp” to see videos he sent of the massacre. The man’s father reacted with praise, while his mother begged him to return home.
Amit Palit, a news anchor and correspondent for India TV based in New Delhi, said that after reporting on the attacks of Oct. 7 on live television, seeing the raw footage helped him understand the “bigger picture.” He said the screening “was necessary for many people who have some doubts.”
Palit, who has been covering the war in Israel for the past 12 days, was most affected by a video of two young brothers after they lost their father, who was murdered in front of them with an explosive while the three were hiding together in a bomb shelter at home. The footage was among the “very painful” clips he witnessed, he said.
“He was asking, ‘Dad,’ and the teenager said, ‘Why am I alive?’” Palit recounted. “A 13-year-old boy cursing himself, asking why he was alive, asking his brother ‘Can you see?’ And he couldn’t see because he lost [one of] his eyes” from the shrapnel of the blast that killed his father.”
Some journalists expressed skepticism about the screening, saying that authentic footage compiled by the Israeli army could come with its own agenda. Nicolas Coadou, a reporter for BFN TV in France, said the footage “is edited, they choose what they want to show us.”
But he acknowledged that reporting on the press conference would be challenging.
“I have a live [broadcast] in one hour,” he said. “And I don’t know what I am going to say.”
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The post Fearing denial and disinformation, Israel shows journalists raw footage of Hamas attacks appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen
Smoke rises after Israeli strikes near Sanaa airport, in Sanaa, Yemen, Dec. 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Israel struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi terrorist group in Yemen on Thursday, including Sanaa International Airport, and Houthi media said three people were killed.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was about to board a plane at the airport when it came under attack. A crew member on the plane was injured, he said in a statement.
The Israeli military said that in addition to striking the airport, it also hit military infrastructure at the ports of Hodeidah, Salif, and Ras Kanatib on Yemen’s west coast. It also attacked the country’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations.
Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said two people were killed in the strikes on the airport and one person was killed in the port hits, while 11 others were wounded in the attacks.
There was no comment from the Houthis, who have repeatedly fired drones and missiles towards Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the attacks that Israel will continue its mission until it is complete: “We are determined to sever this terror arm of Iran’s axis.”
The prime minister has been strengthened at home by the Israeli military’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon and by its destruction of most of the Syrian army’s strategic weapons.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were also reported by Al Masirah TV.
Tedros said he had been in Yemen to negotiate the release of detained UN staff detainees and to assess the humanitarian situation in Yemen.
“As we were about to board our flight from Sanaa … the airport came under aerial bombardment. One of our plane’s crew members was injured,” he said in a statement.
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues were safe.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the incident.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel‘s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel‘s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
The post Israel Strikes Houthi Targets in Yemen first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza
US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew. Photo: Alchetron.
The Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) has condemned US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for casting doubt on a new report claiming that famine has gripped northern Gaza.
The controversial Muslim advocacy group on Wednesday slammed Lew for his “callous dismissal” of the recent Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report accusing Israel of inflicting famine on the Gaza Strip. The organization subsequently asserted that Israel had perpetrated an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza.
“Ambassador Lew’s callous dismissal of this shocking report by a US-backed agency exposing Israel’s campaign of forced starvation in Gaza reminds one of the old joke about a man who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy because he is now an ‘orphan,’” CAIR said in a statement.
“To reject a report on starvation in northern Gaza by appearing to boast about the fact that it has been successfully ethnically cleansed of its native population is just the latest example of Biden administration officials supporting, enabling, and excusing Israel’s clear and open campaign of genocide in Gaza,” the Washington, DC-based group continued.
On Monday, FEWS Net, a US-created provider of warning and analysis on food insecurity, released a report detailing that a famine had allegedly taken hold of northern Gaza. The report argued that 65,000-75,000 individuals remain stranded in the area without sufficient access to food.
“Israel’s near-total blockade of humanitarian and commercial food supplies to besieged areas of North Gaza Governorate” has resulted in mass starvation among scores of innocent civilians in the beleaguered enclave, the report stated.
Lew subsequently issued a statement denying the veracity of the FEWS Net report, slamming the organization for peddling “inaccurate” information and “causing confusion.”
“The report issued today on Gaza by FEWS NET relies on data that is outdated and inaccurate. We have worked closely with the Government of Israel and the UN to provide greater access to the North Governorate, and it is now apparent that the civilian population in that part of Gaza is in the range of 7,000-15,000, not 65,000-75,000 which is the basis of this report,” Lew wrote.
“At a time when inaccurate information is causing confusion and accusations, it is irresponsible to issue a report like this. We work day and night with the UN and our Israeli partners to meet humanitarian needs — which are great — and relying on inaccurate data is irresponsible,” Lew continued.
Following Lew’s repudiation, FEWS NET quietly removed the report on Wednesday, sparking outrage among supporters of the pro-Palestinian cause.
“We ask FEWS NET not to submit to the bullying of genocide supporters and to again make its report available to the public,” CAIR said in its statement.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Israel has been repeatedly accused of inflicting famine in Hamas-ruled Gaza. Despite the allegations, there is scant evidence of mass starvation across the war-torn enclave.
This is not the first time that FEWS Net has attempted to accuse Israel of inflicting famine in Gaza. In June, the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected claims by FEWS Net that a famine had taken hold of northern Gaza. In rejecting the allegations, the FRC cited an “uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence employed in the analysis.”
Meanwhile, CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the onset of the Gaza war last October.
CAIR has been embroiled in controversy since the Oct. 7 atrocities. The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage across southern Israel.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago in November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has long been a controversial organization. In the 2000s, it was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
The post Controversial Islamic Group CAIR Chides US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew for Denying Report of ‘Famine’ in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’
Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are guarded by police after violence targeting Israeli football fans broke out in Amsterdam overnight, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ami Shooman/Israel Hayom
The international Jewish civil rights organization legally representing more than 50 victims of the attack on Israeli soccer fans that took place in Amsterdam last month has joined many voices in lambasting a Dutch court for what they described as a mild punishment for the attackers.
“These sentences are an insult to the victims and a stain on the Dutch legal system,” The Lawfare Project’s founder and executive director Brooke Goldstein said in a statement on Wednesday. “Allowing individuals who coordinated and celebrated acts of violence to walk away with minimal consequences diminishes the rule of law and undermines trust in the judicial process. If this is the response to such blatant antisemitism, what hope is there for deterring future offenders or safeguarding the Jewish community.”
On Tuesday, a district court in Amsterdam sentenced five men for their participation in the violent attacks in the Dutch city against fans of the Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv. The premeditated and coordinated violence took place on the night of Nov. 7 and into the early hours of Nov 8, before and after Maccabi Tel Aviv competed against the Dutch soccer team Ajax in a UEFA Europa League match. The five suspects were sentenced to up to 100 hours of community service and up to six months in prison.
The attackers were found guilty of public violence, which included kicking an individual lying on the ground, and inciting the violence by calling on members of a WhatsApp group chat to gather and attack Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. One man sentenced on Tuesday who had a “leading role” in the violence, according to prosecutors, was given the longest sentence — six months in prison.
“As someone who witnessed these trials firsthand, I am deeply disheartened by the leniency of these sentences,” added Ziporah Reich, director of litigation at The Lawfare Project. “The violent, coordinated attacks against Jews in Amsterdam are among the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe. These light sentences fail to reflect the gravity of these crimes and do little to deliver justice to the victims who are left traumatized and unheard. Even more troubling, they set a dangerous precedent, signaling to future offenders that such horrific acts of violence will not be met with serious consequences.”
The Lawfare Project said on Wednesday that it is representing over 50 victims of the Amsterdam attacks. It has also secured for their clients a local counsel — Peter Plasman, who is a partner at the Amsterdam-based law firm Kötter L’Homme Plasman — to represent them in the Netherlands. The Lawfare Project aims to protect the civil and human rights of Jewish people around the world through legal action.
Others who have criticized the Dutch court for its sentencing of the five men on Tuesday included Arsen Ostrovsky, a leading human rights attorney and CEO of The International Legal Forum; Tal-Or Cohen, the founder and CEO of CyberWell; and The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel.
The post Jewish Civil Rights Group Representing Amsterdam Pogrom Victims Slams Dutch Court for ‘Light Sentences’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.