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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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Meta Boots Anti-Zionist Columbia University Group From Instagram
Pro-Hamas Columbia University students march in front of pro-Israel demonstrators on Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Photo: Roy De La Cruz via Reuters Connect
Meta Platforms, Inc. has banned the infamous Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) anti-Zionist student group from its platforms, a decision that the company says is irrevocable.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD is responsible for spreading pro-Hamas propaganda, assaulting Jewish students, and disrupting academic study at Columbia with unauthorized demonstrations and property destruction. Its behavior, among other factors, drove the Trump administration’s cancellation in March of $400 million in federal contracts and grants awarded to Columbia.
CUAD first reported that Meta shuttered its Instagram account on Monday, denouncing the measure as being part of “a long and concerted effort from corporations and imperial powers to erase the Palestinian people.” Meta later justified the decision to Jewish Insider, explaining that CUAD had forced the company’s hand by ceaselessly transgressing the platform’s terms of use of agreement. Meta forbids groups which advocate violence to operate on Instagram, and CUAD has used its account to call for toppling the Israeli and US governments. Additionally, its Instagram account has been essential for promoting unlawful demonstrations CUAD continues to hold at Columbia University and for sharing resources that have helped its collaborators avoid punishment.
Meta told Jewish Insider that the group won’t be allowed back.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD’s activities have been described as a threat to the civil rights and security of Jewish Columbia University students.
Last April, CUAD members commandeered a section of campus and, after declaring it a “liberated zone,” lit flares and chanted pro-Hamas and anti-American slogans. When the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrived to disperse the unlawful gathering, hundreds of CUAD members and their affiliates reportedly amassed around them to prevent the restoration of order. During ensuing clashes with law enforcement, one student screamed “Yes, we’re all Hamas, pig!” while others shouted, “Long live Hamas!” and filmed themselves praising the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the US-designated terrorist group.
In September, during the university’s convocation ceremony, the group distributed a pamphlet which called on students to join the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s movement to destroy Israel. Several sections of the document were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.
In February, CUAD committed infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts.
Following two occupations of administrative buildings at Barnard College, Laura Rosenbury, the school’s president, denounced the group as a paranoid hate-organization.
“They [CUAD] operate in the shadows, hiding behind masks and Instagram posts with Molotov cocktails aimed at Barnard buildings, antisemitic tropes about wealth, influence, and ‘Zionist billionaires,’ and calls for violence and disruption at any cost,” Rosenbury wrote in an op-ed published by The Chronicle of Higher Education. “They claim Columbia University’s name, but the truth is, because their members wear masks, no one really knows whose interests they serve.”
Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Meta Boots Anti-Zionist Columbia University Group From Instagram first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tlaib Set to Headline Terrorist-Connected Palestinian Event in New Jersey
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaking at a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, March 11, 2025. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is set to headline a conference that is also hosting a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization, according to documents obtained by The Algemeiner.
The Palestinian American Community Center (PACC) in New Jersey will hold its annual conference, titled “Grounded in Action: Exploring the Power of the Palestinian Diaspora,” from Thursday through Sunday. Wisam Rafeedie, a self-admitted member of the PFLP, will address the conference virtually on the 4th day of the event.
According to PACC’s website, the conference “is a call to recommit ourselves to amplifying and supporting the Palestinian voices and advocates who have long been at the forefront of our struggle.” PACC also calls on members of the Palestinian diaspora “to leverage our unique positions and power” to “push for meaningful action.””
Tlaib is scheduled to headline the event’s “Youth Day,” in which she will host a reading and signing for her new children’s book, Mama in Congress, alongside her son Adam Tlaib. According to Harper Collins, the book’s publisher, Mama in Congress will chronicle Tlaib’s journey from Detroit to the halls of the federal government. The book will also detail Tlaib’s supposed efforts in working toward “justice for all” in Congress.
The conference will include several workshops educating attendees on “resistance,” “solidarity,” and “collective struggle.” The event will also feature a session stressing the importance of “centering Palestinian prisoners.”
This is not the first time that Tlaib has come under scrutiny for attending a pro-Palestinian conference tied to terrorists. Last May, Tlaib came under fire for speaking at the “The People’s Conference for Palestine,” which also hosted Rafeedie among other individuals connected to terrorist groups. During that event, Rafeedie praised Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza and murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, as a “resistance” against Israel. He defended and downplayed Hamas’s atrocities, saying that “Zionists lie like they breathe.”
“This is not a struggle between Hamas and Israel. Hamas is part of the resistance of the Palestinian people. The core issue is between the Palestinian people and the project of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing,” Rafeedie said.
Rafeedie also called for the complete destruction of Israel and the replacement of the Jewish state with a “democratic” Palestine.
“There is no longer a place for the two-state solution for any Palestinian. The only solution is one democratic Palestinian state on all Palestinian land, which will end the Zionist project in Palestine,” Rafeedie continued.
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has positioned herself as a fierce and outspoken critic of Israel. Since entering office, Tlaib has repeatedly accused the Jewish state of implementing an “apartheid” regime in the West Bank and turning Gaza into an “open-air prison.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Tlaib has sharpened her condemnations of the Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, she hesitated to release an official statement acknowledging the mass slaughter, abductions, and rapes perpetrated by Hamas. Less than two weeks after the invasion, Tlaib introduced a “ceasefire” resolution between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group. In November 2023, the House of Representatives voted to censure Tlaib over her anti-Israel rhetoric.
The progressive firebrand has also condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza, accusing the Jewish state of committing a full-scale “genocide” against the civilians of the enclave. She has also peddled the unsubstantiated claim that Israel has purposefully inflicted mass starvation against Palestinian civilians and urged the Biden administration when it was in power to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Simmering with anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, she refused to endorse former Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential bid.
Tlaib’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The post Tlaib Set to Headline Terrorist-Connected Palestinian Event in New Jersey first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Driver Charged for Brooklyn Car Crash Killing Jewish Family Has History of Claiming CIA Follows Her
An overturned auto in a car crash flipped on its roof landing on a mother and her three children, killing two children on March 29, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
A Brooklyn woman who was charged for a car crash on Saturday that killed a Jewish woman and her two young daughters has alleged in the past on social media that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is following her, a claim she also made to first responders after the fatal accident.
Miriam Yarimi, 32, is facing multiple charges, including three counts of second-degree manslaughter, three counts of criminal negligent homicide, and four counts of second-degree assault. Yarimi — a Brooklyn resident and wigmaker who is also a Jewish mother herself – was transported to NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn in stable condition. She was then moved to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital, according to reports.
The car crash killed Natasha Saada, 32, and her daughters – 8-year-old Diana and 6-year-old Deborah. Saada’s son Philip, 4, was injured in the crash and hospitalized at Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park in critical condition. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested Yarimi, a single mother who has a young daughter, and she is awaiting arraignment in connection to the crash that took place Saturday afternoon at an intersection on Ocean Parkway off Quentin Road in Midwood. Police said she was driving with a suspended license at the time of the crash.
“This was a horrific tragedy caused by someone who shouldn’t have been on the road,” said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “A mother and two young children killed, another child fighting for his life, a family and a neighborhood devastated in an instant. The NYPD sends its condolences to the family of the victims.”
Yarimi, who shares custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, reportedly told first responders with the Jewish-led volunteer ambulance service Hatzalah that she was “possessed” and that she believes the CIA was pursing her.
She has made similar claims about the CIA many times on Instagram, a former customer of hers told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. The source, who wishes to remain anonymous, purchased a wig from Yarimi several years ago and has been following her on social media for a number of years. Yarimi has 16,000 followers on Instagram and screenshots of her since-deleted posts, obtained by The Algemeiner, confirm she previously believed that the CIA is tracking her.
“It’s very convenient to plead insanity. But it’s not new. She is actually insane. This is [an] old topic,” the former client told The Algemeiner. “She thinks that she’s been followed by CIA for a long, long time already. She truly believes that CIA is spying on her … But only people who follow her [on social media] and know her for a long time would know this. She’s sick.”
In one since-deleted Instagram post, Yarimi wrote in part about the CIA: “They have control of EVERYONE here in this world BESIDES ME … when I went to Miami, it all clicked … once they knew that I knew, they followed me around the hotel, dressed up as young parents with a doona [stroller] and disco outfits like I was stupid and didn’t know who they were … if anything they stuck out like glue.”
“It was the government, blackjack, and the CIA who manipulated everyone and took control of everyone’s mind but because I was the catalyst and the sacrificial lamb so they did their best to break me,” she wrote in a separate post that has also been deleted. “They experimented (abused) me and that’s when they cloned my daughter and I so when I die, they could reinsert me into the crowd and make me into another person.”
Yarimi previously had a highlight on her Instagram page where she talked about demons and the CIA, but it has since been deleted, her former customer told The Algemeiner. Yarimi also wrote on her Instagram Story once that she believes Hollywood is trying to clone people to look like her.
“Why do you think most of the girls in Hollywood have similar features to me like Rita Ora & Jane the Virgin etc,” Yarimi once wrote on Instagram, as seen in a screenshot shared with The Algemeiner. “Wake up, this is not just happening in Hollywood. This is happening right here in the Jewish community in Brooklyn.”
Not long after she uploaded the Instagram posts, Yarimi was admitted to a psychiatric ward and when she returned to social media, she spoke about the experience, the source told The Algemeiner.
“After the above posts she was locked up for two weeks in a psych ward. She’s very public. She went live when paramedics broke into her house and took her. She came back online two weeks later and spoke about her psych ward experience,” Yarimi’s follower said. “And it was saved in her [Instagram] highlights as well … It was horrible.”
The Algemeiner has seen a copy of Yarimi’s Instagram video that shows police drag her out of bed after she refused their orders to get up by herself. In the clip, three police officers are seen in her bedroom and a fourth is standing by the doorway.
Another longtime Instagram follower of Yamini’s described her as “delusional” when speaking to The Algemeiner, and confirmed that Yamini has spoken online repeatedly in the past about how she believes the CIA is tracking her.
In December 2024, Yarimi won a $2 million settlement from the city of New York after she filed a lawsuit claiming that former NYPD Officer George Mastrokostas repeatedly raped her for several years after falsely arresting her.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Deputy Chief Richie Taylor attended the funeral for Saada and her daughters on Sunday in Brooklyn before their bodies were flown to Israel for burial. Saada is survived by her husband, Sidney Saada, her sons Philip and Jacob, her parents and three siblings. Adams called the crash “a tragic accident of a Shakespearean proportion.”
“A mother going for a simple stroll on a sunny day was struck and killed. As we pray for their families and this entire community, the city mourns this loss,” he added.
Police said Yarimi was driving a blue Audi A3 sedan when she rear-ended a 2023 silver Toyota Camry with TLC plates that was carrying four passengers – a mother and three children. NYPD Commissioner Tisch said the force of the crash caused the Toyota Camry to be pushed aside, while the Audi moved forward, crashing into Saada and her children as they were crossing the street before the car overturned. Saada and her two daughters were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Toyota Camry, a 62-year-old man, was hospitalized in stable condition. The four passengers inside his car sustained minor injuries and were also hospitalized, according to Tisch.
Yarimi’s car had 99 parking and camera violations between August 2023 and March 2025, including 21 speed camera tickets and five red light tickets, Eyewitness News ABC 7 reported, citing a website that tracks vehicle violations using city data. She had nearly $10,500 in fines and a car with the same license plate as Yarimi’s still has $1,345 in unpaid fines, the news outlet also revealed.
The post Driver Charged for Brooklyn Car Crash Killing Jewish Family Has History of Claiming CIA Follows Her first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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