[News] Israel stages fake Hamas surrender with abducted Palestinian civilians

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Israel stages fake Hamas surrender with abducted Palestinian civilians

Israel wants to show Hamas losing control of its forces even as news of
large casualties among Israeli forces in Gaza are finally emerging

News Desk <https://new.thecradle.co/authors/news-desk-9> -
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/israel-stages-fake-hamas-surrender-with-abducted-palestinian-civilians

DEC 10, 2023
A Palestinian man with his hands up holding an assault rifle after
surrendering to troops in northern Gaza's Jabaliya, on December 9, 2023.
(Photo credit: Times of Israel/Social media: used in accordance with Clause
27a of the Copyright Law)

Israeli forces have staged a video claiming to show Hamas members
surrendering in Gaza, in an apparent bid to claim the Hamas leadership is
losing control of its fighters.

Israeli forces abducted dozens of Gaza men from the market street in Beit
Lahia in northern Gaza on 7 December. The men were forced to strip off
their clothes and sit in rows on the street. They were then searched and
humiliated before they were taken in trucks to an unknown location.

Israel claimed the men were Hamas fighters who surrendered and released
footage showing one of the nearly naked men walking toward the soldiers
with a Kalashnikov rifle above his head. He then lays the rifle down on the
pavement before returning to the large group of captured men.

In the video, the man is holding the rifle in his left hand above his head.

But another video emerged showing the same scene, but this time, the man is
holding the rifle in his right hand, showing the scene was recorded
multiple times. This suggests Israeli forces staged a fake Hamas surrender
using captured Palestinian civilians.

The man shown surrendering with the gun was later identified as Munir
Qeshta al-Masry. He is the owner of an aluminum shop in Beit Lahia and has
no connection to the Hamas movement.

Many of the other captured men shown in the footage have also been
identified as civilians, including
<https://new.thecradle.co/articles/israeli-forces-strip-abduct-dozens-of-palestinian-men>
*Al-Araby
Al-Jadeed* reporter Diaa al-Kahlout along with his brothers and other
relatives.

The outlet lost contact with Kahlout on Thursday afternoon before his
family informed them of his abduction.

Kahlout's sister said her brother was forced at gunpoint to leave his
disabled seven-year-old daughter. She added that the men were taken away,
stripped and beaten by Israeli forces.

When the video was first released, Israeli army Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel
Hagari claimed that after their surrender, the alleged Hamas fighters
complained during interrogation “that the Hamas leadership is disconnected
from the tough situation they are in on the ground."

Member of Hamas' Political Bureau Izzat al-Rishq responded in a statement,
saying:

“Al-Qassam heroes do not surrender, and the occupation’s lies do not
deceive anyone The Zionist terrorist occupation’s display of pictures and
scenes of defenseless civilians in Gaza, after detaining them and placing
weapons next to them, is nothing but one of the chapters of an open and
ridiculous play, which the occupation has always fabricated in order to
create an alleged victory over the resistance men.”

The staged surrender video comes as the Israeli media has begun to
recognize the Israeli army’s significant losses during its ground campaign
in Gaza.

Despite its success in killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians in
airstrikes. the Israeli army has registered at least 5,000 wounded among
its ranks, including 2,000 troops who have been left “disabled” during the
two-month-long ethnic cleansing campaign of Gaza.“Israel has never
witnessed an event like this before in terms of the number of injured
people,” the head of the Rehabilitation Department at the Israeli Ministry
of Defense, Limor Luria, told Hebrew daily* Yedioth Ahronoth*
<https://www.ynet.co.il/health/article/yokra13707397> on 9 December. She
added that “58 percent of the soldiers have limb injuries, as they were
subjected to the amputation of a leg or arm.”The Israeli army claims only 91
soldiers
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-announces-deaths-of-two-reserves-soldiers-bringing-gaza-ground-op-toll-to-91/>
have
been killed by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza since the start of the
war on 7 October, casting doubt on whether the actual death toll is being kept
secret
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/israeli-director-of-military-cemetery-reveals-shocking-numbers-of-israeli-soldiers-killed-in-gaza/>
as
the Al-Qassam Brigades has documented the daily destruction of Israeli
vehicles and squadrons for the past two months.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20231210/d6c28a5b/attachment-0001.htm>