Many descriptions of the dramatic events which allegedly took place in Kibbutz Be'eri, were published on #ZAKA's social networks, are false. The following are a few of a long series of stories that were spread, but are completely detached from reality. There is no evidence of these cases, and no one in the kibbutz heard about the people described in them. Indeed, A senior member of ZAKA admitted in a conversation with #Haaretz" that the organization knows that this was not the case.
The made-up stories issue:
[...] "We saw a woman around 30 years old, she was lying on the floor in a large pool of blood, with her face to the ground. We turned her over to put her in a body bag," a senior ZAKA volunteer recounted in tears. "She was pregnant," he added, stopping to catch his breath. "Her stomach was ripped open and the baby was still attached by the umbilical cord, stabbed, and she had been shot in the back of the head. I don't know if she suffered or saw her baby murdered or not."
[...] The description of this dramatic event, which supposedly took place in Kibbutz Be'eri and was also published on ZAKA's social media, simply did not happen. As was recently published in Haaretz, this is one of a series of stories circulated with no basis in reality. There is no evidence of the case, and no one in the kibbutz heard about this woman. A senior ZAKA official admitted in a conversation with Haaretz that the organization knows the incident did not occur.
[...] And this is not an isolated case. In another video, starring the same volunteer, he describes in tears and crying how he found 20 burnt and bound bodies of children in one of the kibbutzim. He told Haaretz it was behind the dining hall in Kfar Aza, on another occasion he said it was in Be'eri.
[...] However, the minors murdered in Kfar Aza were Yiftah Kurtz, 14, and his brother Yonatan, 16. In Be'eri, ten minors were murdered, but at least some of them were with one of their parents and were killed in their homes. Other than his testimony, there is no evidence of these events taking place.
The fundraising issue:
[...] Fundraising began already on October 8th. "Our volunteers in the field are surrounded by bodies and gunfire and urgently need protection and equipment," was written in a tweet by the organization the day after the massacre. The statement is of course true - ZAKA personnel did indeed work under fire, needed additional equipment, and were surrounded by many bodies. Even though fundraising for a non-profit is completely legitimate, questions arise around the timing and manner in which this was done. And they don't diminish, given the fact that the organization hired a public relations firm, who accompanied the volunteers and photographed them already in the first weeks of the war.
[...] Some who approached the group more closely could hear three of the volunteers busy with video calls and filming clips for fundraising. According to the volunteer's description, the corpse was part of the set, part of the display for donors, while the race against time to collect the bodies of the massacre victims and evacuate them was at its peak. "They opened a fundraising situation room there," described another person who witnessed the event, and who operated throughout the war in the communities near Gaza. "Two weeks later I saw them operating similarly also in Be'eri – sitting and making fundraising videos and calls inside the kibbutz." ZAKA stated that "no fundraising calls were made by the organization in the field, and any specific incident brought to our attention will be investigated and handled."