Israeli army admits running unauthorized graphic Gaza influence op

Images from the ’72 Virgins – Uncensored’ Telegram group

Yaniv Kubovich reports in Haaretz on 4 February 2024:

Reversing an earlier denial, Israeli military officials have admitted that the Telegram channel 72 Virgins – Uncensored was operated by members of a department of the Israel Defense Forces’ Operations Directorate.

The admission comes after a Haaretz published an exposé on the channel last month, which led to an internal investigation into the matter.

The probe, conducted by Maj. Gen. Oded Basyuk, head of the Operations Directorate, found that the information that led to the original denial that the channel was operated by or on behalf of the army was incorrect, and relied on misinformation relayed by members of the Influencing Department. In the wake of these findings, the unit’s wartime commander is to end his military service.

During the original investigation, sources told Haaretz that members of the unit, which is in charge of psychological warfare targeting the enemy and foreign audiences, created 72 Virgins – Uncensored on October 9, two days after the war began, without official approval and without being authorized to do so. Furthermore, the channel was directed at an Israeli audience.

After processing its findings, IDF officials contacted Haaretz to present their conclusions. In a written response, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said that after a thorough investigation, “it was found that the Telegram page was operated by the IDF without authorization and without authority. The incident has been dealt with.”

The channel’s administrators posted graphic content, such as images of the dead bodies of Hamas terrorists, captioned “Shatter the terrorists’ fantasy,” on a daily basis. On several occasions, they posted exclusive material from investigations or information that was only available to the defense establishment at the time, boasting that it was “exclusive from Gaza.” They uploaded thousands of videos and still images of the killing of terrorists and destruction in the Strip, and encouraged the channel’s followers to share the content so that “everyone can see we’re screwing them.”

The operators used coarse language in a bid to obscure the IDF’s involvement in the channel. An October 11 post read: “Burning their mother… You won’t believe the video we got! You can hear their bones crunch. We’ll post it right away, get ready.” Photos of Palestinian men captured by the IDF in the Strip and the bodies of terrorists were captioned: “Exterminating the roaches… exterminating the Hamas rats… Share this beauty.” A video of a soldier allegedly dipping machine gun bullets in pork fat is captioned: “What a man!!!!! Greases bullets with lard. You won’t get your virgins.” Another caption was: “Garbage juice!!!! Another dead terrorist!! You have to watch it with the sound, you’ll die laughing.”

On October 14, alongside the caption “Exclusive video of a good night, don’t forget to share and repost” was a video of an Israeli vehicle repeatedly driving over the body of a terrorist. “Very good, Gershon!!! Run him over run him over!!!! Screw the bastards! Flatten them,” the accompanying text read.

The channel administrators didn’t stop at images from Gaza. On October 11, hundreds of Israelis, including members of the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team’s violently racist fan club La Familia, rioted at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv, following a rumor that Hamas terrorists who had invaded Israel were being treated there. People roamed the hospital, cursing out and spitting on medical professionals. Within an hour, a video of the riot was posted to the 72 Virgins channel with the title, “My brothers, the heroesssss, La Familia fans, love you!!!!!!! What heroes, they came to screw the Arabs.”

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