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Palestinian Detainee Images Spark Furor and Misinformation in Mainstream Media & Social Media
Israeli soldiers operate at the Shajaiya district of Gaza city amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, Dec. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger
Over the past few days, several photos and videos have emerged of Palestinian men (many of them stripped to their underwear) being detained by Israeli soldiers in various parts of northern Gaza.
In both the mainstream media and social media, these images have elicited a fair amount of attention, with some criticizing the IDF’s measures and others engaging in the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Conspiracy theories surrounding this picture are spreading like wildfire.
Mass graves.
Humiliation.
Torture.
Abducted civilians who are never seen again.
In reality, there are already reports that some of these men have been released… pic.twitter.com/tLitHyHGF7
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 8, 2023
These images depict military-age men being detained in the northern Gaza Strip.
After intensive fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas terrorists, these men exited nearby buildings and tunnel shafts en masse, surrendering to Israeli forces.
The men were then detained with restraints and, in some cases, blindfolds, and taken to processing areas where it was determined by Israeli security officials whether they were members of Hamas or civilians. If they were civilians, they were then released from Israeli custody.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari confirms many Hamas members have surrendered to troops in the Gaza Strip today, saying they have revealed intelligence information on the terror group’s functioning amid the ground offensive.
“In Shejaiya and Jabaliya, terrorists who… pic.twitter.com/Ws2M3VR8lD
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 9, 2023
The reason that so many have been photographed in various states of undress is due to the fear that they may be hiding explosives and weapons under their clothing and waiting to ambush Israeli soldiers.
This fear is not unfounded, as Hamas is known for its past use of suicide bombers and there have been recorded incidents of terrorists feigning surrender only to attack security forces once they get closer (as occurred with “surrendering” ISIS terrorists in Iraq in 2017).
Also, since it has been over a month since Israel initially warned residents of northern Gaza to evacuate to the south, it is understandable for Israeli forces to be suspicious of any male emerging from hideouts in Hamas enclaves in the north, and to treat them as a potential threat until it can be determined otherwise.
As Israeli spokesperson Eylon Levy made clear in a recent interview on CNN, this is the result of Hamas’ choice to embed itself within a civilian population and to have its members fight against Israeli soldiers while wearing civilian clothing with no markers identifying them as combatants (a clear violation of international law).
If Hamas terrorists had “HAMAS” written on their helmets, obviously it would be easier to fight them.
That’s why they dress up as civilians. pic.twitter.com/0kNbECXfEZ
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) December 9, 2023
Despite the necessity of having detainees remove their clothing to ensure that they are not armed or boobytrapped, the images of Israeli soldiers surrounding near-naked Palestinian detainees have caused quite a stir in both the mainstream media and on social media.
As Ryan McBeth, a US Army veteran and intelligence analyst with a large following on social media, said in a recent video on this subject, “Israel does this because it is the most efficient way of making sure that nobody has a suicide vest. However, the optics of it are less than stellar.”
I guess everyone has already seen the images of the Palestinian detainees that are widely shared on this platform since yesterday.
Never thought I’d share a link to @SkyNews to provide an expert opinion about the context of the images. but here we are, nonetheless.… pic.twitter.com/osJAgoqgAV
— Mark Zlochin – מארק זלוצ’ין༝ (@MarkZlochin) December 8, 2023
In the days following the initial release of these photos of male Palestinian detainees in northern Gaza, several mainstream news organizations reported with varying levels of nuance and accuracy.
In The Times of London’s coverage, it’s not until the fourth paragraph that it’s mentioned that “some of the men” were reportedly “Hamas fighters who surrendered to the army.”
Then, two paragraphs later, the report states that “Israeli forces regularly strip their captives to ensure they are not carrying concealed weapons or explosives.”
In both its headline and the text of its report, The Telegraph claims that the detained men were stripped and “paraded” through a central square that was once used by Hamas, evoking images of victorious forces flaunting their captive enemies.
However, the report fails to provide evidence for any “parade” and its video evidence merely shows male Palestinian detainees sitting under the watchful eye of Israeli soldiers.
Dozens of Palestinian men captured by the Israeli military were stripped to their underwear and paraded around a central square in Gaza where Hamas fighters used to hold rallies.
Read more https://t.co/xA7wQ4CWr0 pic.twitter.com/l6HtGkPe6X
— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) December 7, 2023
The BBC began with quotes from both the IDF spokesperson and Eylon Levy, but then gave greater space to those critical of the IDF’s actions, including Palestinian envoy Husam Zomlot, who described them as “savage images” and said that “this evokes some of humanity’s darkest passages of history.”
While the removal of these detainees’ clothes is mentioned, it is referred to as “humiliating” and “horrifying,” with no reason given for why they were made to do so. Thus, the reader is left with an impression of Israeli cruelty rather than the understanding that it is necessary in an active war zone where the enemy embeds itself among the civilian population.
Likewise, NBC News used the terms “humiliating” and “humiliation” several times, but did not offer one word about why Israeli forces required them to remove their clothing upon surrendering.
NBC News also seemed intent on discrediting Israel’s counter-terrorism activities by questioning the validity of certain Israeli actions and using a statement by Hamas to refute Israel’s claim that some of those detained were “Hamas terrorist operatives.”
Images from Gaza show dozens of men stripped to underwear and detained by Israeli forces.
Israel says it has detained a number of “military-age men” in the area in attempts to identify any Hamas fighters. https://t.co/jPHuGUK9wO
— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 9, 2023
The New York Times gave four paragraphs to official Israeli explanations for the IDF’s activities — but more than three times as many were given those critical of Israel’s detainment of these Palestinian men.
The New York Times’ description of these detainees as being “tied up outdoors and stripped to their underwear” helps to create a false image of these detainees being cruelly treated like animals by the IDF, instead of the reality of them being detained until it could be determined whether they were enemy combatants or not.
For its part, Sky News gave ample space to the allegations put forward by Israel and the IDF and did not color its coverage with language meant to portray Israel’s actions in a negative light.
Overall, the narrative being created by most of these news organizations is one of Israeli retribution and cruel vengeance against Palestinian detainees instead of what it actually is: a concerted effort to protect Israeli forces against attack while also trying to distinguish Hamas members from civilians in an active and fraught war zone.
While many on social media pushed the above false narrative about Israel’s conduct in northern Gaza, others went further, spreading both misinformation and conspiracy theories about Israel’s treatment of the detainees.
Some claimed that Israel took these detainees to be hostages, others claimed that the images served as evidence for the “indiscriminate arrest and torture of all Palestinian men,” while others even went so far as to claim that the detainees were taken away to be executed.
In one incident, a video of a man being instructed by Israeli soldiers to lay down a rifle on the ground was used by several social media personalities like Muhammad Shehada, Angelo Giuliano, and Max Blumenthal, to claim that it was staged by the IDF in order to serve as a “victory image.”
According to these claims, the existence of two videos of the man laying down a rifle proves that it was done a couple of times for the benefit of the cameras.
However, this claim was quickly refuted by those who proved that there are different rifles in these videos and that the man was probably chosen by the IDF to remove all rifles that were among the group of Palestinian men surrendering to the Israeli military.
Even though there were Hamas members among the Palestinian detainees and they were forced to remove their clothing to ensure that they were not concealing weapons or explosives, the images of Israeli soldiers standing over half-naked Palestinian men have engendered a storm within both the mainstream media and social media.
The storm over these photos has been wrongfully directed at Israel and the IDF instead of the true perpetrators in these images: the terrorists who hide among civilians, endangering both Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers.
The post Palestinian Detainee Images Spark Furor and Misinformation in Mainstream Media & Social Media first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Swiss Ambassador to Israel Criticizes Fencers for Disrespecting Israeli National Anthem at European Championships

Swiss athletes refuse to face the Israeli flag during the playing of the Israeli national anthem at the European U23 Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, on April 26, 2025. Photo: Team Bizzi
Switzerland’s Ambassador to Israel Simon Geissbühler on Sunday sharply criticized the actions of the Swiss fencing team, which showed disrespect when the Israeli national anthem played at the European U23 Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, this past weekend.
Israel’s under-23 men’s epée team took home the gold medal at the international competition while Switzerland won silver, followed by Italy, which won bronze. The Israeli fencing team included fencers Alon Sarid, Feodor Khapersky, Yehonathan Messika, and Itamar Tavor.
During Saturday’s medal ceremony, Israel’s national anthem “Hatikvah” played, in honor of the gold medal winners. Both the Israeli and Italian teams turned toward the Israeli flag while the song played, but the Swiss team remained facing forward. The Swiss team was comprised of fencers Ian Hauri, Théo Brochard, Jonathan Fuhrimann, and Sven Vineis.
“Personally, but also on behalf of Swiss Fencing, I deplore the behavior of our athletes,” Geissbühler wrote in a letter on Sunday, as cited by several news outlets. “An award ceremony must under no circumstances be misused for political statements – despite every athlete’s right to have their own opinion on political conflicts and wars.” He added that the actions of the Swiss team were “not discussed with anyone in advance,” and said the Swiss Fencing Association will speak to the athletes when they return home “and then decide on the next steps.”
The Swiss Fencing Association said in a statement on Facebook that the Swiss athletes “abused the victory ceremony for a political manifestation.”
“In principle, Swiss Fencing is of the opinion that sporting competitions are not suitable for political opinions, even though athletes are allowed to have their personal opinions on world events,” the association further noted. “Swiss Fencing will discuss with the U23 team after the athletes return from Estonia and then decide on necessary measures. We regret that this behavior hurts the feelings of the Israeli delegation and discredit the sporting achievements of the Swiss team with three medals at this U23 European Championship. We congratulate the Israeli team for winning the gold medal in the team competition.”
The federation pointed out that the Swiss team did congratulate the Israeli winners after the final. The Swiss athletes reportedly shook hands with their Israeli counterparts.
Ambassador of Israel to Switzerland Ifat Reshef also commented on the ordeal that took place at the European U23 Championships. In a post on X, she congratulated Team Israel on their win and added, “We definitely expected from our Swiss friends better sportsmanship (and better knowledge of facts and understanding of the real situation).”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the Swiss athletes are an “embarrassment” to their home country. He wrote in a post on X: “Shame on the Swiss team for their disrespectful behavior. you [sic] don’t know how to lose and behaved in a manner which is an embarrassment to you and the country you’re supposed to represent.”
Israel Olympic Committee chairwoman and International Olympic Committee member Yael Arad also reportedly condemned their behavior in a Facebook post. She described their actions as a “provocation” that contradict Olympic values and Switzerland’s position on terrorism, after the Swiss parliamentary committee voted to ban Hamas following the deadly Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in 2023.
“The Swiss under-23 team chose to cope with the loss on the podium as the anthem was being played with provocative losing chutzpah that utterly contravenes not only Olympic values, but also the fact that Switzerland declared Hamas an illegal murderous terrorist organization after Oct. 7,” Arad, who is the first Israeli to ever win an Olympic medal with her silver in judo in 1992, reportedly wrote.
“Their failure to respect sportsmanship speaks volumes about them as athletes and young people,” she added. “I would expect them to set aside differences and show mutual respect, especially after such a decisive loss.”
The Israeli fencing team that competed in the European U23 Championships was coached by Alexander Ivanov. The team ranked seventh when they entered the competition, and their win is Israel’s first team gold at the European U-23 Championships since the 2022 win by Dar Hecht in the women’s division.
The Israeli women’s fencing team that competed in the European U23 Championships was also victorious this weekend. The women’s épée fencing team —comprised of Mihal Shukurov, Viki Ossipov, Yuval Yizhaki, and Tamara Lando — won bronze on Sunday.
The post Swiss Ambassador to Israel Criticizes Fencers for Disrespecting Israeli National Anthem at European Championships first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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At Israeli Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Rejection Sparks Broad Support for Continued Pressure on Hamas

A picture released by the Israeli Army says to show Israeli soldiers conducting operations in a location given as Tel Al-Sultan area, Rafah Governorate, Gaza, in this handout image released April 2, 2025. Photo: Israeli Army/Handout via REUTERS
Israel’s Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer vowed at a policy summit on Monday that Israel would defeat Hamas and bring home the hostages still being held by the Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza.
His remarks came amid reports that Israeli officials had formally rejected an Egyptian-brokered proposal for a five-year truce between Israel and Hamas in exchange for the release of 59 hostages still held in Gaza.
“We are going to dismantle Hamas’s military capabilities and end its rule in Gaza. We will ensure that Gaza can never again pose a threat to the State of Israel. And we are committed to bringing all our hostages home. These are the goals we have set, and we fully intend to achieve them,” Dermer vowed.
An Israeli senior official was cited earlier in the day as saying that Jerusalem had rebuffed a five-year truce that would see Hamas able to “rearm, recover, and continue its war against the State of Israel with greater intensity.”
The sentiment was echoed by several civil society leaders at the Jewish News Syndicate policy summit in Jerusalem, which brought together largely conservative policymakers, diplomats, academics, and journalists.
“There is absolutely no way that Hamas will give over every piece of its leverage. Even if there is a ceasefire, it will look more like [the one with] Hezbollah, which is not actually a ceasefire,” political commentator Meira Kolatch said, referring to the truce repeatedly violated by the Iran-backed terrorist group.
“The soldiers won’t agree to this,” Kolatch told The Algemeiner.
American influencer and PragerU host Xaviaer DuRousseau warned against “over-negotiating” with a terrorist organization such as Hamas. “Five years is far too long for Hamas to exist. Five days is too long. We need to be much more direct and forceful in doing everything to bring the hostages home and make sure Hamas is wiped off the planet.”
Beyond the Gaza war, a major focus of the gathering was Iran.
In his address at the summit a day earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out a framework for countering Iranian nuclear ambitions. Noting strong US-Israel alignment on preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Netanyahu called for a deal that would fully dismantle Iran’s enrichment infrastructure and curb its production of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
“A bad deal is worse than no deal,” Netanyahu warned, emphasizing that only the complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would eliminate the threat.
“The only good deal that works is a deal like the one that was made with Libya that removed all [nuclear] infrastructure,” he said.
Speaking to The Algemeiner, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon expressed skepticism over the Trump administration’s Oman-based talks with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program, calling the Iranians “masters of deception.”
Dermer was more diplomatic, telling audience members that he was “confident” that US President Donald Trump would “make a good deal.”
In his address to the gathering, Danon vowed the war against Hamas “will not end with hostages [remaining] in Gaza,” referring to those kidnapped during the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Addressing Trump’s decision to nix the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) as the American ambassador to the UN, Danon said he was “deeply disappointed” but confident that the president would pick a “strong” candidate for the role and also have a hand in appointing a secretary-general who would be more favorable to Israel than the incumbent, António Guterres.
Danon, who led a delegation of over 30 UN ambassadors to the Hamas-attacked communities of southern Israel as well as to the site of the Nova music festival massacre, said Israel was under “constant attack” at the UN. He pointed to the virulently anti-Israel UN special rapporteur for Palestinian rights, Francesca Albanese, who he said should be barred from entering the US.

Israeli Ambassador the United Nations Danny Danon. Photo: Debbie Weiss / The Algemeiner
The Israeli envoy also Trump’s efforts to weed out antisemitism on US campuses and stop “dangerous outsiders who are not even students but who go on campuses to incite.”
Supporters of Israel should be “as engaged as possible in the fight against antisemitism,” Danon told The Algemeiner.
As for the war against Hamas, some experts in attendance argued that Israel also has to alter its approach to Egypt, with which Jerusalem has maintained a peace treaty for decades.
Jonathan Conricus, former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Israel’s approach toward Egypt needed urgent reassessment.
“They hold the keys to the future of Gaza,” Conricus told the Algemeiner, referring to Egypt’s control of the Rafah border crossing, which connects southern Gaza and Egypt.
He criticized Israel’s reliance on diplomatic incentives with its southern neighbor, urging a tougher stance while preserving the peace treaty.
“We’ve been using way too much carrot, and far less than the necessary stick. They are, in many ways, dictating terms that we should be dictating and that’s very regrettable,” he said.
“Every moment that they continue to keep the gates closed at Rafah really makes it close to impossible for us to actually defeat Hamas,” he added.
As for the status of the US-Israel relationship, Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, warned against what he termed the “woke right” of the Republican party.
“The cancer that has taken over the Democratic Party with the woke progressive left – with Bernie Sanders, AOC, Ilhan Oman, Rashida Talib, and the protesters on college campuses – we’re starting to see the beginning cells of that cancer start to take hold in the Republican Party,” Brooks told the audience.
Speaking later to The Algemeiner, Brooks said the danger came from rising voices within the GOP advocating American disengagement from the world, led by figures like Tucker Carlson.
“There’s not a lot of foreign policy difference and in some ways economic populist difference between, say, Bernie Sanders on one hand and Tucker Carlson on the other,” he said.
Extremes on both the right and the left were converging in a form of “neoisolationism” that seeks to “withdraw America’s role in the world and shrink it to just to our borders” and that views Israel as a liability rather than a strategic ally, Brooks said.
“It’s a very dangerous place for the Republican Party and for the country to go,” Brooks said.
On the international scene, the director of UK Lawyers for Israel, Natasha Hausdorff, who joined a legal panel at the event, urged private individuals to take a more active role in advocating for the rule of law and equal treatment for Israel in the international arena, particularly in legal forums. She emphasized that civil society actors are often able to speak and act more freely than the state itself, which is constrained by diplomatic considerations.
“I fundamentally believe that we as civil society have a great deal more to contribute to the legal debate. There is currently a deficiency of Israel demanding its equal rights and demanding the proper application of international law in the international space,” she told The Algemeiner.
In Israel’s case, Hausdorff said, international law was being weaponized, resulting in “the erosion of legal terminology like apartheid, genocide, ethnic cleansing, colonialism, occupation.”
Marcus Sheff, CEO of curricula watchdog IMPACT-se, focused on the role of education in combating antisemitism. He cited Elie Wiesel’s assertion that fighting antisemitism must begin with books.
“Textbooks are uniquely authoritative: they are a key tool in creating the societies of the future that will keep Jews safe,” Sheff told The Algemeiner. “From Saudi Arabia and the UAE to Morocco and Azerbaijan, antisemitism is being eradicated from national school curricula.” He urged Western countries — and even some school districts in the US — to follow the lead of those Muslim states.
The post At Israeli Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Rejection Sparks Broad Support for Continued Pressure on Hamas first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Wikipedia Nonprofit Status Under Scrutiny From US Justice Department Amid Claims of Systemic Anti-Israel Bias

A woman walks past the US Department of Justice Building, in Washington, DC, Dec. 15, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Al Drago
The US Justice Department under President Donald Trump has launched an investigation into the nonprofit that operates the popular Wikipedia website, amid accusations that the online encyclopedia has spread “propaganda” and allowed “foreign actors to manipulate information” while maintaining a systemic bias against Israel.
Edward Martin, the interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia, sent a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation on Thursday, warning the organization that its nonprofit status could be jeopardized for possibly violating its “legal obligations and fiduciary responsibilities” under US law.
“[T]he public is entitled to rely on a reasonable expectation of neutrality, transparency, and accountability in [Wikimedia’s] operations and publications,” Martin wrote.
“It has come to my attention that the Wikimedia Foundation, through its wholly owned subsidiary Wikipedia, is allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda to the American public,” Trump’s top prosecutor in the US capital continued. “Wikipedia is permitting information manipulation on its platform, including the rewriting of key, historical events and biographical information of current and previous American leaders, as well as other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States. Masking propaganda that influences public opinion under the guise of providing informational material is antithetical to Wikimedia’s ‘educational’ mission.”
Martin noted that top search engines such as Google prioritize Wikipedia results and that artificial intelligence (AI) platforms receive Wikipedia data to train large-language models, arguing that anti-American misinformation pushed by the website could have a widespread insidious effect on large populations.
Wikipedia has been embroiled in controversy over allegations that its editors have spearheaded campaigns to defame Israel, casting doubt over the site’s commitment to providing information on controversial subjects in a factual and neutral manner. A group of high-ranking Wikipedia editors has engaged in an elaborate and systematic effort to depict the Jewish state’s history in an overtly negative light, according to investigative reports by Pirate Wires and Jewish Journal.
The cohort of Wikipedia editors has softened the image of Islamist terrorist groups such as Hamas through removing any mention of their 1988 charter, which calls for the complete massacre of Jews and elimination of Israel. The editors also edited an article on Zionism, describing the movement for Jewish self-determination as “an ethnocultural nationalist movement” which was “pursued through the colonization of Palestine.”
“Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible,” the Wikipedia article on Zionism read.
Though the editors have steadily embedded an anti-Israel bias for years, efforts ramped up shortly after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to researchers and investigative journalists. The group, for example, added an article titled “Gaza Genocide” in November 2024, heavily implying that Israel has waged a campaign of ethnic extermination in the Gaza enclave.
“According to a United Nations special committee, Amnesty International, and other experts and human rights organizations, Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people during its ongoing invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip as part of the Gaza war,” the article read.
The site has also published an article titled Israeli Apartheid, which claims that the Jewish state has built “a system of institutionalized segregation and discrimination in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and to a lesser extent in Israel proper.”
Several of the most controversial articles regarding Israel have been placed under “extended confirmed protection” which prohibits anyone, outside of high-ranking Wikipedia editors, from making edits.
Last month, the Anti-Defamation League published a report titled “Editing for Hate: How Anti-Israel and Anti-Jewish Bias Undermines Wikipedia’s Neutrality,” which argued that a group of “malicious” Wikipedia editors have inserted anti-Israel bias onto the site, oftentimes violating the organization’s neutrality policies in the process.
“Most readers assume Wikipedia is a reliable online encyclopedia, but in reality, it has become a biased platform manipulated by agenda-driven editors on many topics,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.
The Wikimedia Foundation disputed the findings of the report. “Though our preliminary review of this report finds troubling and flawed conclusions that are not supported by the Anti-Defamation League’s data, we are currently undertaking a more thorough and detailed analysis,” a Wikimedia spokesperson said of the findings.
In his letter, Martin requested documents and information to answer several questions about the foundation’s conduct.
The post Wikipedia Nonprofit Status Under Scrutiny From US Justice Department Amid Claims of Systemic Anti-Israel Bias first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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