MSNBC
Israeli government accounts on the social media site X have been posting a video with a quote from a freed hostage, in which she says that ‘there are no innocent civilians’ in Gaza, a claim that is sparking protests online because of the Palestinian death toll in the country’s military campaign in the region.
The video is a compilation of images and clips related to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the Gaza conflict that has followed. A narrator says that Gazan civilians participated in the Hamas attack and then helped to hold the hostages in the months since.
The video, which is 51 seconds long, also includes footage from an interview with Mia Schem that was conducted in December shortly after she was released. About 15 seconds into the video, she begins speaking in Hebrew, with her words translated onto the screen in English. Describing her experience being held in Gaza and her outlook on people living there, she says, ‘They’d enter the room (children of the family) from time to time to look at me as if I’m an animal. There are no innocent civilians there. Families there live under the Hamas.’
The video appeared on X from the Israeli government’s main account, @Israel, according to screenshots posted by multiple other users. The post was no longer online Thursday, and it was not immediately clear whether Israel took down the post or X did. The same video, though, appeared on other X accounts maintained by the Israeli government, including in posts from Israel’s embassies in Lithuania and South Korea and another from its consulate in Los Angeles. Those posts were still online Friday.
Some users on X and Instagram posted screenshots of Israel appearing to have used the video in an ad on X, paying the site to boost the video’s visibility.
The posts are an escalation of Israel’s ongoing rhetoric on social media, where the country’s official accounts, operated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration, have routinely published graphic videos and advertisements in an attempt to sway public opinion toward its views. Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, is generally banned from social media.
The Israeli government’s inclusion of the phrase ‘there are no innocent civilians’ in an official video that was seemingly amplified through a paid advertisement sparked a firestorm of criticism that’s been viewed millions of times on X, with some people denouncing the video as an attempt to justify the killing of civilians as the bloody war in Gaza continues into its ninth month.
‘This is disgusting. It is exactly what atrocity perpetrators say,’ Mark Kersten, a war crimes researcher with the Wayamo Foundation, an international justice organization, wrote on X.
International humanitarian law is largely based on making a distinction between civilians and combatants, he said in an interview.
‘To blur the lines is to suggest that this whole apparatus is incorrect or faulty and therefore, in this instance at least, anyone can be targeted, and I think that’s why people are so concerned about this kind of rhetoric,’ said Kersten, who’s also a criminal justice professor at the University of the Fraser Valley in Canada, specializing in international criminal law.
Israel has argued in social media posts that the word ‘civilian’ has been overused by Palestinians and applied to people who don’t fit the term because they have worked with Hamas even as they had other professions. In a post Tuesday on X, the government said that a journalist and a doctor were involved in holding Israeli hostages in Gaza. An Israeli military spokesperson said this month that the most recently freed hostages were kept in civilian buildings with families living in them.
Israel’s supporters have said that Israel is right to target Gazans who support Hamas.
‘These are not civilians. These are Hamas ambassadors,’ Donny Deutsch, an author and advertising executive, said during an appearance on MSNBC.
David Mencer, a spokesperson for Netanyahu, this week called on the world to condemn Gazans’ support for Hamas.
‘Hamas is intentionally involving the civilian population of Gaza in its war crimes,’ he said in a video statement. ‘And we would be extremely happy to be corrected, but we have yet to see anyone in the world condemn Gazan support for these Hamas atrocities.’
Israeli officials have been accused before of crossing rhetorical lines. Days after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said at a news conference that ‘it’s an entire nation that is out there that’s responsible,’ referring to the Palestinian people. The International Court of Justice later cited his words in a report harshly critical of Israel’s conduct, and Herzog said his words were taken out of context.
Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that the video was a sign that the Israeli government feels emboldened.
‘It is a video confession,’ he said in a phone interview. ‘It is the latest video confession that is proudly being shared with the world, and that’s due to the lack of a sense of accountability.’
Awad said the video should put pressure on the Biden administration to do more to try to end Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The Biden administration has said that it’s been clear about the need to prioritize civilian protection.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said last month that the death toll there since Oct. 7 had topped 35,000 people. The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said last month that he was seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defense minister in part for alleged attacks targeting civilians in Gaza, in addition to arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders.
As a social media platform, X has been a lightning rod for criticism over how it has handled the latest Israel-Hamas conflict. Misinformation and false news stories proliferated on the site immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, and X has faced questions from European regulators about pro-Hamas content while also taking down many pro-Hamas accounts.
X management has said it is ‘laser focused’ on the Israel-Hamas conflict to protect the public conversation while also enforcing the platform’s rules. By the company’s count, it has removed hundreds of thousands of pieces of content for violations of those rules.