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.”
#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 ban 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.
#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 of the reports in Israeli and international media networks — including CNN, the BBC, the New York Times, and many others — that accuse Palestinians of committing systematic wide-scale gender-based violence against Israeli women on October 7, 2023, rely on testimonies by Israeli ZAKA volunteers.
ZAKA is a non-governmental religious Haredi organization specializing in collecting dead bodies and body parts from sites of “unnatural” deaths and transporting them to morgues according to strict Jewish religious laws.
(...)
On November 12, 2023, the Israeli website Ynet published a report about how ZAKA was recruited to join Israel’s hasbara campaigns on the events of October 7, and conducted interviews with dozens of foreign journalists coordinated through the Government Press Office. Hasbara is the Israeli term for “public diplomacy” or government propaganda campaigns.
The director of the GPO, Nitzan Hein, stated, “It is difficult to imagine the Israeli hasbara with foreign correspondents without the remarkable, valuable, and effective role of ZAKA’s men. Their activity is extremely important in hasbara.”'
Stickers & graffiti saying “Free Palestine” have been plastered outside the #BelfryTheatre entrance in #protest against the staging of The Runner, a one-man play that focuses on the experience of a volunteer member of #ZAKA, an #ultraOrthodox rescue service in #Israel.
Stickers appeared after dozens of #proPalestine#activists walked out of a community discussion at theatre on Friday to stage a protest outside, saying their concerns about the play, were not being heard.
"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."
A recap of main events today (while i was working on a completely different story so details to come later):
-emergency government and war cabinet formed in #Israel
#Gaza 's only power station stopped working, leaving the territory without main electricity
17 Brits, including children are dead or missing after #hamas attack in Israel
'Volunteers searching for bodies at the Supernova music #festival site - where at least 260 people were killed on Saturday - have had to suspend their search because they are “under fire” from militants.
Yossi #Landau , a commander in the #Zaka volunteer group, says his team of 25 have so far recovered 162 bodies from the site of the festival but “couldn’t get any further”.
“We work under fire, so had to evacuate that place,” Landau told the #BBC 's Today programme. #Israel#Gaza#hamas