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IDF spokesman: World media fell for Hamas’ lies

IDF Brigadier General Ronen Manelis exposed Hamas’ modus operandi of lying to the press and charged the media with disseminating the terrorist group’s lies. 

By: World Israel News Staff

An IDF spokesperson criticized the international media for parroting Hamas’ narrative regarding the violence on the Gaza border and publishing its lies without properly investigating them.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Monday, IDF Brigadier General Ronen Manelis explained that Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri’s method of operation is simple: he lies.

“Their lies support the stated goal of Hamas: the delegitimization and destruction of Israel,” Manelis explained.

During the recent weeks of violence on the Gaza border, “Hamas has continued to lie to the world, which is why their rare acknowledgments of truth are especially revealing.”

While “Hamas spokesmen raced to the press to lament the death of innocent civilians,” senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil admitted that 50 of the 62 killed during Monday’s violence were Hamas terrorists.

“Hamas itself has confirmed that 80 percent of those killed in their violent riots were members of a terrorist group, not innocent civilians,” Manelis underscored.

Several more of the fatalities were claimed by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Similarly, Mahmoud Al-Zahhar, a co-founder of Hamas, said in an interview with Al Jazeera, “When we talk about ‘peaceful resistance,’ we are deceiving the public.”

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“You can only trust Hamas when they admit to their lies,” Manelis said.

Exposing Hamas’ “orchestrated well-funded terrorist propaganda operation,” Manelis wrote that the terror organization provided free transportation from throughout the Gaza Strip to the border for innocent civilians, including women and children. Hamas hired them as extras, paying $14 a person or $100 a family for attendance—and $500 if they managed to get injured.

Similarly, Hamas forced all of their commanders and operatives to go to the border dressed as civilians, each serving as a director of an area.

“The audience was the international media. Hamas gave anyone with a video camera front-row access to the show and free Wi-Fi. The IDF had precise intelligence that the violent riots were masking a plan of mass infiltration into Israel in order to carry out a massacre against Israeli civilians. Hamas called it a ‘peaceful protest,’ and much of the world simply fell for it. It wasn’t fake news, it was simply fake,” Manelis wrote.

No such thing as a peaceful protest in Gaza

“The idea that this was a peaceful protest is the biggest lie of all, because the basic tenets required for a protest in a democracy like the US or Israel do not exist in Gaza. Under Hamas’s control, there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of religion, no freedom of the press. There can be no such thing as a peaceful protest in Gaza, only gatherings organized, sanctioned and funded by Hamas,” he explained.

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“As part of Hamas’ propaganda operation, hundreds of Gazans were injured last week and several dozen died, most of whom were Hamas operatives. None of this violence had to occur, but it was the violence that Hamas instigated and orchestrated so that the headlines and pictures would reinforce the lies that the Hamas spokesmen had planned.”

Choosing Hamas’ lies, instead of facts

Manelis charged “some in the media” of helping Hamas by “choosing to publish its lies and not the facts.”

“If, in order to win the international propaganda war, I need to lie like Hamas, then I prefer to tell the truth and lose,” the IDF spokesman stated. “The IDF will win where it matters—protecting our civilians in the face of terror. The soldiers of the IDF won this week by keeping Israeli families safe and by stopping Hamas from accomplishing its stated goals.”

“Even more than the lying, the true difference between Mr. Abu Zuhri and me is that he goes to sleep every night wishing for the destruction of my country and the death of my children. I go to sleep at night hoping for a better life for his children as well as mine. And that’s the truth,” he concluded.