How 2 debunked accounts of sexual violence on Oct. 7 fueled a global dispute over Israel-Hamas war
Chaim Otmazgin had tended to dozens of shot, burned or mutilated bodies before he reached the home that would put him at the center of a global clash.
Working in a kibbutz that was ravaged by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, #Otmazgin — a volunteer commander with #ZAKA, an Israeli search and rescue organization — saw the body of a teenager, shot dead and separated from her family in a different room. Her pants had been pulled down below her waist. He thought that was evidence of sexual violence.
He alerted journalists to what he’d seen. He tearfully recounted the details in a nationally televised appearance in the Israeli Parliament. In the frantic hours, days and weeks that followed the Hamas attack, his testimony ricocheted across the world.
But it turns out that what Otmazgin thought had occurred in the home at the kibbutz hadn’t happened.
Beyond the numerous and well-documented atrocities committed by #Hamas militants on Oct. 7, some accounts from that day, like Otmazgin’s, proved untrue.
“It’s not that I invented a story,” Otmazgin told The Associated Press in an interview, detailing the origins of his initial explosive claim — one of two by ZAKA volunteers about sexual violence that turned out to be unfounded.
“I couldn’t think of any other option” other than the teen having been sexually assaulted, he said. “At the end, it turned out to be different, so I corrected myself.”
#Israel / "All the Evidence of Hamas Rape on October 7" So Far
Haaretz's Liza Rozovsky attempts to reconstruct sexual violence evidence on October 7th, based on what's known so far to investigators, not avoiding mentioning the falsifications by #ZAKA volunteers, the Israeli government failure to acknowledge the UN special report, and one confession so far from #IJ militant (who's a prisoner of war) Manar Qassem.
[...] "The real problem is the ability to go to trial on the basis of admissible evidence of a sufficient level for a court" to convict, a senior source in the State Prosecutor's Office told Haaretz, with regard to the investigation. "The investigators are leaving no stone unturned in trying to obtain evidence, every day brings new things. The last word has not yet been said."
[...] Thus, with no charges regarding the sexual attacks having yet been presented to the court, Haaretz spoke with dozens of sources who are dealing with the subject, in an effort to map out the evidence, testimonies and other findings that establish that sex crimes were committed, and to understand what material is still missing.
[...] At the conclusion of the UN report, Patten recommended both to the enforcement agencies in Israel and to international bodies "to bring all perpetrators, regardless of rank or affiliation, to justice based on individual, superior and command responsibility," and she urged Israel to sign a cooperation framework with her office in order to improve the mechanisms of justice dealing with sexual violence. "Patten came with clean hands and courage," Ben-Or says. "I think we should extend a hand and grab this help."
[...] The politicians in Israel did exactly the opposite. Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz chose to attack "the silencing of the sex crimes" by the UN precisely after the report was submitted and resonated widely in the world media.
#Blinken should end up in The Hague, with Netanyahu, Biden and the rest
By amplifying #ZAKA's unsubstantiated claims without corroborating evidence from impartial sources, Blinken tacitly lends credibility to an organization accused of whitewashing Israeli violence and human rights violations. This willingness to broadcast selectively curated information aligns the U.S. stance with Israeli propaganda efforts to reframe defensive Palestinian resistance as unwarranted aggression. Blinken's actions normalize the marginalization of Palestinian perspectives and enable the systemic information asymmetry that nurtures the cyclical perpetuation of the Israeli occupation's oppressive status quo in Gaza.
Bassem: THEY LIED . THEY LIED . THEY STILL DO. They lied so the world can accept the atrocities they are doing now . They lied . Their media said they lied . And the western media didn’t even bother reporting on that . Shame on you @cnn@bbcnews@skynews@msnbc@foxnews@france24@dwnews
#US / Are Jewish Organizations supporting TikTok to suppress criticism of Israel?
One of America's largest pro-Israel Jewish organizations, the Jewish Federations of North America (#JFNA), has voiced support for a proposed ban on the popular video-sharing app #TikTok in the US. The JFNA cited concerns over alleged #antisemitism and growing criticism of Israel among TikTok's predominantly young user base.
The JFNA, an umbrella group representing numerous American Jewish organizations known for their strong support of Israel, launched a $700 million fundraising drive for Israeli groups, including the controversial first responder organization #Zaka, in the wake of the war in Gaza.
Critics argue that supporters of Israel are weaponizing accusations of antisemitism to defend Israel's actions in Gaza and criminalize pro-Palestinian voices, including on social media platforms like TikTok. They claim that TikTok has been an important tool for activists and users to expose atrocities in Gaza and condemn Israel's actions.
A New investigation by The Intercept has confirmed that the Israeli #Zaka "search-and-rescue" group, which was responsible for the rescue operations following the #October7 military operation, had invented atrocities and accusations of beheadings and rapes against the resistance to help Israel carry out genocide in #Gaza.
This confirms a previous investigation by The Grayzone, which also proved that Zaka leveraged October 7 publicity to raise unprecedented sums of cash.
American Media Keep Citing Zaka — Though Its Atrocity Stories Are Discredited in Israel
Yossi Landau is head of operations for the southern region at Zaka, an Israeli search-and-rescue organization assigned to collect human remains after the October 7 attack. Landau’s emotional recollections were replayed, repeated, cited, and quoted in the global media.
But a problem emerged: No one in the Israeli press could find any evidence that the referenced massacres ever took place.
#MediaBias / Jewish Insider wants WAPO's coverage of the Middle East to be more like that of NYT and WSJ ... 🤔
Jewish Insider claims the Washington Post is "under fire" for "repeated anti-Israel bias, systemic sloppiness in Middle East coverage."
The "fire" seems to be repeated claims by sources such as Jewish Insider editors themselves, Time of Israel and organizations such as #ADL, #CAMERA and few others.
No need to remind anyone who or what #ADL is and how it operates https://droptheadl.org/, but CAMERA (so called "Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America") is possibly even worse.
"To its supporters, CAMERA is figuratively - and perhaps literally - doing God's work, battling insidious anti-Israeli bias in the media. But its detractors see CAMERA as a myopic and vindictive special interest group trying to muscle its views into media coverage. ... To many in the media CAMERA is ... an advocacy group trying to impose its pro-Israeli views on mainstream journalism." --- The Boston Globe, Mark Jurkowitz observed https://web.archive.org/web/20090213190540/http://www.hnn.us/comments/8390.html
The most relevant part in the WAPO's editor's note, later added to the article, states:
"The article incorrectly said that all Palestinian mothers who received authorization to leave Gaza for humanitarian reasons had to return to Gaza to reapply after their permits expired. In fact, it was not always necessary for mothers to return to Gaza."
They also mention addition of comments from Israeli officials.
"Some" is not none, but WAPO correcting itself should be praised. Jewish Insider and the other critics mentioned though want to discredit yet another publication documenting Israel's #WarCrimes in Gaza.
Jewish Insider seem to claim that WAPO's coverage of Israel must be biased, because its tone and findings seem to be very different from that of NYT and WSJ. But, is that a bad thing?
Considering the NYT exploitative coverage of the unconfirmed systematic rape by Hamas militants (in which its reporter misled one of the victims' family) and the hit job on #UNRWA the #IDF ran in the WWSJ, the Washington Post has really nothing to apologize for.
[cont'd] #MediaBias / The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé
[...] The fear among #NYT staffers who have been critical of the paper’s #Gaza coverage is that Schwartz will become a scapegoat for what is a much deeper failure. She may harbor animosity toward Palestinians, lack the experience with investigative journalism, and feel conflicting pressures between being a supporter of Israel’s war effort and a Times reporter, but Schwartz did not commission herself and her nephew to report one of the most consequential stories of the war. Senior leadership at the New York Times did.
So who is Anat Schwartz?
She's an Israeli filmmaker with no prior journalism experience. She was assigned to work on a controversial New York Times investigation into alleged #Hamas sexual violence, despite lacking objectivity. She was paired with veteran Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, though she and Sella did most of the reporting.
She pushed for the Times story alleging systematic Hamas sexual violence to be published quickly to aid Israeli propaganda, despite lack of evidence. Furthermore, she relied heavily on testimony from dubious sources, like Israeli officials and #Zaka workers, who known for spreading false information. Even worse, she dismissed her own doubts and lack of forensic evidence to remain convinced of the sexual violence claims.
Schwartz had liked tweets saying Israel should "turn Gaza into a slaughterhouse" and that Palestinians were "human animals".
"The investigation found that Zaka propagated accounts of atrocities that never occurred, released graphic photos, and acted unprofessionally on the ground."
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."
"New doubts are emerging about the New York Times’s coverage of sexual violence in the October 7 attack. The paper must explain why it broke its own rules by hiring a clearly biased writer who endorsed racist and violent rhetoric toward Palestinians."