Our team pulled together a snapshot of the Week with thoughts courtesy of Zeteo, the Financial Times, Defense One, Politico, and France24 as the G7 concluded in Italy, as the War in Ukraine went on and on, and France's elections began. The UK elections is two weeks away and the first Presidential Debate in the United States is also before us:
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"May Gaza burn": The flood of genocidal rhetoric from Israel's soldiers
Inside Israel's Insta-Genocide, Part Two of our Zeteo investigation
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Senior Israeli military commander Gur Rosenblat is explicit: All of Gaza, “not just the Hamas organization,” must be eliminated and its 2 million people driven out. The Strip, he writes on social media, should “cease to exist.”
While Rosenblat, the head of Israel’s Northern Infantry Brigade who also serves as the deputy general director of the country’s Education Ministry, makes clear he’s not speaking in his official capacity in an Oct. 13 Facebook post, he does not attempt to disguise his genocidal calls. “People who are human beasts and their supporters must pay a high price – if not with their lives, then with expulsion,” he writes.
Just three days later, an Instagram account with the username @gvrrvznblt that claims to be Rosenblat, posted a photo with the caption: “Why don’t we kill ten, twenty thousand Gazans a day with shelling for every day they don’t return the abductees [Israeli hostages]…Madness.”
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In calling for a “decisive victory” on Facebook on Nov. 20, Rosenblat clarifies that “only the complete and final erasure” of Gaza City, the Palestinian enclave’s most populous city prior to the war, and the “transfer of its residents to the southern part of the Strip… can bring about some change,” he says.
A “kind of second or third Nakba,” he adds. “Just as [the Palestinian village of] Sheikh Munis, on whose ruins Tel Aviv was established [in 1948], and many other Arab settlements were erased, so too must the city of Gaza be erased.”
Rosenblat is not alone. Since Oct. 7, we’ve uncovered hundreds of social media posts by Israeli military personnel, including commanders, filled with dehumanizing, hateful, and often genocidal rhetoric. The posts contribute to a mounting body of evidence pointing to what human rights groups and others have called a systematic pattern of war crimes committed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. They also lay bare the intent of Israel’s war on Gaza. It’s not a “defensive war” aimed at ensuring “minimum harm to civilians,” as Israel and its allies like to claim. The soldiers’ own words suggest harming civilians through death, destruction, and displacement is, in fact, an objective.
In part one of our investigation for Zeteo, we highlighted the dehumanizing photos soldiers have shared from Gaza. In part two, we document the genocidal rhetoric that has become an all too common theme among Israeli soldiers, including those deployed to Gaza. Unless noted, the soldiers who shared the posts did not respond to our requests for comment.
A Blueprint To “Annihilate Them To Dust”
A Facebook page claiming to be Col. (Res.) Elad Schvartz posted a video on Oct. 8 with a message for Israel’s leaders. "If within four hours all the hostages [aren't] released..., start burning Gaza," says the senior officer from the 91st division, dressed in his military uniform. "Neighborhood after neighborhood."
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About 40 miles away, soldiers appearing to be from the 5060th Reserve Battalion, which operates in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, made their own broader call to burn Palestinian cities across the occupied territories: “May your village burn, may your village burn,” several of soldiers chant in a video posted to Instagram by an Israeli soldier.
The demands – calling for the broad destruction of a people and their land – weren’t just rhetoric. As the world has witnessed over the last eight months, they served as a blueprint for destruction, documented not just by Palestinians in Gaza, but also by Israeli soldiers on the ground in the Strip who appeared eager to boast to their followers about what they planned to do – and when they did it.
This was especially true around the fighting that took place in the heavily populated Gaza City neighborhood of Shuja’iyya, where many Palestinians had sought shelter early in the war. As the Israeli military pushed into the area in December, communications blackouts made it hard to know exactly what was happening. It would turn out to be a fierce battle.
At least two Instagram accounts, claiming to be soldiers with the Givati brigade, shared what appeared to be drone footage showing buildings in the neighborhood in flames. An unidentified voice, presumably a soldier, is heard on the video saying they’re setting out for “operation eighth night of Hannukah" to burn Shuja’iyya. “Let our enemies learn and be deterred…We will annihilate them to dust,” the voice adds.
Mohammed Abo Al-Kombz, who is from Shuja’iyya, told Zeteo that entire parts of the neighborhood and nearby areas had been torched in a way that appears to be consistent with what the video shows.
The Israeli military did not answer our specific questions about the footage or whether it carried out a specific operation like the one mentioned in the video. But the fact the video was uploaded to social media by Israeli soldiers appears to illustrate the message they wanted to send - to “annihilate” Palestinians “to dust.”
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On Dec. 19, Capitan Roi Azran posted a video on Facebook from Shuja'iyya, appearing to show off the destruction of the neighborhood. "Here is Gaza, the daughter of a whore. All of Shuja’iyya will rise in flames,” someone says in the video.
In January, an Instagram account with the username alon_dayann, claiming to be Israeli soldier Alon Dayan, posted a video using similar language. “Good morning, you sons of whores,” a soldier in the video is heard saying before shooting at what appear to be civilian homes. The video’s caption reads in Hebrew: “May Gaza burn on all its inhabitants.”
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Sharon Ohana of the Israeli military’s Combat Engineering Corps, in a December Facebook post, appears to foreshadow what’s to come. The “fate” of Shuja’iyya, Khan Younis, and Rafah “must be as the fate of the northern [Gaza] Strip at the beginning of the war – dirt, fire, and leftover concrete," Ohana writes in December. “…We must flatten all of Gaza!”
Surely Ohana’s post is just a bad joke? Ohana makes it very clear it is not. “‘Together we will flatten’ is not a joke, but an unequivocal statement written in blood by the best security-minded IDF officers & not for naught…”
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As the battle raged in Shuja'iyya, other Israeli units were invading the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis. Israeli soldier Peleg Harush posted a video to Instagram on Dec. 5, showing billows of smoke coming from what appears to be Palestinians’ homes. “Ah… Gaza is burning. May you burn alive you whores,” a voice says in the video in Hebrew.
In another post in January from the same account, a soldier appearing to be Harush sends a message to Gaza’s residents in Hebrew: “Everything is ruined, destroyed, burned, smashed. You have nowhere to return to, Gazans. To all dear Gaza residents, you are not dear. You are cheap….We are going to make you miserable…You are going to suffer every second for what you did to us…. You are going to die.”
Culture of Impunity
For a country that labels its military the “most moral … in the world,” one would think such posts would elicit harsh disciplinary action in an attempt to protect its global image. But as our investigation shows, the Israeli military, at least publicly, has taken few steps to stop its soldiers from sharing such content.
What we found instead was a culture of impunity.
Unless noted, the Israeli military did not answer Zeteo’s questions about specific soldiers or posts. But an Israeli military spokesperson told Zeteo in a statement that “all the videos, images, and social media posts” we pointed to “are inconsistent with the values of the IDF and do not reflect its policy.”
In “a number of the examined cases, it appears that the expression or behavior of the soldiers in the footage is inappropriate and that they have been handled accordingly,” the spokesperson said, noting, however, that “the documented act, by which the statement is accompanied, was carried out for military purposes and in accordance with the orders” like in the case of the destruction of “enemy infrastructure.”
“The relevant authorities were familiar with several of the incidents listed in the query, which were examined, and dealt with at the disciplinary and command level prior to query’s submission,” the spokesperson said. The Israeli military did not elaborate on what specifically the disciplinary action entailed.
“Those cases which were not previously known, have now been transferred for further examination and handling,” the spokesperson added. “In cases where suspicion of a criminal offense arises that justifies opening an investigation, an investigation is opened by the Military Police.”
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari told ABC News earlier this year that the Israeli military is “an army of the people. And we follow the core, the values and the international law.”
Several of the posts uncovered in our investigation remain online, despite evidence that the military’s policy on social media has been violated.
In the case of Harush, who in a post said, “May you burn alive you sons of whores,” the Israeli military told us in February that the behavior of the soldier was inappropriate and handled accordingly, without elaborating. Yet, in a post from mid-April, he wrote, “Gaza we back,” without having deleted his other posts.
In many ways, the posts are reflective of large parts of Israeli society post-Oct. 7. A “genocide fever” has taken over the country’s airwaves, entertainment industry, grocery stores, and neighborhoods, Zeteo contributor Diana Buttu wrote in May. At the beginning of the year, the vast majority of Jewish Israelis surveyed for one poll said they thought the military was using “adequate or too little force” in Gaza. Many of the social media posts found as part of this investigation received dozens of supportive comments and likes.
Genocidal Posts, Despite ICJ Order
The Israeli military’s decision to allow, even indirectly, these posts to exist has already proven to be consequential. In January, the World Court ordered the Israeli government to take measures to prevent and punish any “direct and public incitement to genocide,” which is punishable under the Genocide Convention. South Africa, which brought the case against Israel to the International Court of Justice, cited several similar posts by Israeli soldiers, including at least one we previously exposed, as evidence of genocidal incitement.
The specific ICJ order related to preventing “incitement to genocide,” which was part of a package of provisional measures issued by the court, was one of two that received the support of the then-Israeli judge Aharon Barak. Yet, despite the Court’s order, new posts featuring genocidal language continue to emerge.
In April, an Instagram account claiming to be Yehuda Ben Moha, co-founder of Eyal Battalion, shared a video showing what he says were trucks carrying flour, with the caption: “I would’ve put poison in for the ‘uninvolved.’ Even the Egyptian truck drivers can’t stand them.” Ben Moha declined to comment on the post, and the account was made private after we reached out for comment.
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On April 17, a Facebook account claiming to be Lt. Col. Maoz Schwartz of the Battalion 7007 posted a photo appearing to show forcibly displaced Palestinians bathing in the sea. “They’re at a beach and our hostages are withering in captivity?? They [Gazans] can choke! No beach, no pool, nothing!” he writes. “[A]ll of Gaza is one big terror zone, including those bathing at the beach in the picture.”
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Military’s Narrative Falls Apart
Our investigative efforts have not only exposed the troubling behaviors of Israeli soldiers, but they have also played a role in the legal case brought by South Africa against Israel at the ICJ. However, our work has also drawn the unwelcome attention of Israeli media, which have directed their fire not at the soldiers engaged in barbaric behavior, but at us for exposing it.
Unearthing these materials has been arduous. The work has not only attracted international attention to the situation but has also sparked vital discussions about accountability and justice. It highlights the need for a deeper, more comprehensive examination of the de facto practices and policies within the Israeli military. As more evidence comes to light, the imperative for accountability becomes ever more urgent.
Ultimately, the posts we uncovered reveal a stark contrast to the carefully curated narrative Israel seeks to project. Despite the Israeli military repeatedly saying it takes precautions to minimize civilian harm, the testimonies from soldiers and officers on the ground tell a markedly different story, one characterized by indiscriminate destruction and a pervasive culture of impunity, which has, in our view, essentially provided soldiers with tacit approval to continue with their actions without fear of consequences. The evidence gathered thus far is only a small fraction of what exists.
But the "incitement to genocide" is now clear for all the world to see.
Read Part 1: Israel's Insta-Genocide
Editor’s note: Captions were added to the video showing soldiers chanting on a bus.
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