Israel is glorifying war porn using the telegram channel 72 Virgins, an uncensored channel that the Influencing Department of the IDF Operations Directorate administers.
An Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) psychological warfare unit has been covertly running a war-torn channel that exalts misbehavior by IDF soldiers involved in the invasion of Gaza, including the mistreatment of dead bodies, to incite war fever in Israeli society.
Although the IDF disputes that it is the channel’s operator, a high-ranking military official who thinks the strategy is wrong has come clean and confirmed the IDF’s involvement to the Israeli publication Haaretz.
The instant messaging service Telegram is home to the 72 Virgins – Uncensored channel. The senior military official said the Influencing Department of the IDF Operations Directorate is administering it. Operations against adversaries and overseas audiences are assigned to such units. It appears that the broadcaster is breaking Israeli law by focusing on Israeli viewers.
The senior officer who leaked the information is disturbed about the project as a whole:
“There is no reason for the IDF to conduct influence campaigns on Israeli citizens of Israel. The messages there are problematic. It doesn’t look like an awareness campaign of an army like the IDF, but more like talking points for [far-right rapper] The Shadow, and the fact that soldiers operate such a problematic page is egregious.”
The Shadow, a right-wing Likud Party member, is well-known for his caustic remarks, which have included calling on paramedics to take Palestinian organs so Jews might use them.
With over 5,000 followers and “exclusive content from the Gaza Strip,” 72 Virgins – Uncensored shares photographs of the dead along with videos and pictures of Hamas fighters being killed and captured. The tone of the remark that goes with the posts is unmistakably teenage:
- “Burning their mother … You won’t believe the video we got! You can hear the crunch of their bones. We’ll upload it right away, get ready.”
- “Exterminating the roaches … exterminating the Hamas rats … Share this beauty.”
- On a post purportedly showing machine gun rounds being dipped in pork fat: “What a man!!!!! Lubricates bullets with lard. You won’t get your virgins.”
The broadcaster has frequently applauded the mistreatment of deceased Palestinians. An IDF vehicle is seen repeatedly running over a Hamas militant’s corpse in a video that was uploaded on October 14. The caption read, “Very good, Gershon!!! Run him over run him over!!!! Screw the bastards! Flatten them.”
In October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “The IDF is the most moral army in the world,” amidst growing international contempt for the massive toll of Palestinian civilian deaths brought on by Israel’s Gaza campaign, which was initiated by a murderous and abduction spree by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7.
The channel may violate the Geneva Convention, to which the Zionist state is a signatory, in addition to breaking its own rules that forbid psyops aimed against the Israeli public. The Geneva Council for Rights & Liberties states that “the 1949 Geneva Convention stipulates that the deceased war victims should be protected and treatment of the corpses in an ‘inappropriate’ manner, including taking pictures with them and desecration is prohibited.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel has begun flooding Gaza tunnels, citing US sources familiar with the Israeli military operation.
Based on reports that Hamas militants were receiving treatment at the hospital outside Tel Aviv, the station also exulted when throngs of far-right hooligans, including members of a notoriously racist soccer fan club, stormed the facility:
עדכון: המשטרה קיבלה דיווח על קטטה בכניסה למיון, כנראה מדובר באירוע המצולם הזה.
לפי עדויות עובדים בבית החולים, זה היה רק אירוע אחד מבין כמה pic.twitter.com/fHWLRrfN2d— רן שמעוני Ran Shimoni (@ran_shimoni) October 11, 2023
The IDF-run station released a description of the hospital riot footage, saying, “My brothers, the heroessss, La Familia followers, love you!!!!!!! How daring, to come and ruin the Arabs.”
The Israeli government keeps insisting it is not involved with the channel. “If there was any connection by soldiers or other parties connected to the IDF with the page or its operation, this was done without approval and authority,” a spokesperson for the IDF told Haaretz.
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