[News] Israeli fibs: What really happened when two captives were retrieved?

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-fibs--what-really-happened-when-two-captives-were-re>
Israeli fibs: What really happened when two captives were retrieved?
Al Mayadeen English
February 16, 2024
------------------------------

The truth behind the Israeli narrative of the IOF retrieving two captives
from Rafah: the reality of events that led to their release.
[image: 319a8f63-8d61-4366-8778-fb95558d3fc9.jpg]

   - Israeli captives Louis Har (70) and Fernando Simon Marman (60)

The Israeli occupation forces claimed on Monday that during a joint
operation with Shin Bet and the Israeli Police, they were able to retrieve
two Israeli captives
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/families-of-captives-call-for-radical-shift-in-regime-s-stra>
held in Rafah by the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, while
simultaneously massacring
over 100 Palestinian civilians
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/israeli-massacre-in-rafah-kills-at-least-100-palestinians>
and injuring tens of others.

Following the retrieval of the captives, Israeli media and journalists
narrated a web of tales praising the heroic but complex success of the
operation, while Israeli generals and officials celebrated the
accomplishment.

However, as leads to the narrative did not add up, two major questions were
raised:
What happened during the Israeli operation? And were the two Israelis
actually held captive by the Resistance?

Reliable sources revealed to *Al Mayadeen* the chronology of events of the
operation on February 12, exposing the fallacy of the Israeli narrative as
nothing more than an unraveling fictitious charade that unveils the
severity of "Israel's" turmoil and signifies just another tale added to the
collection of lies the occupation has spread since October 7.
A Fabricated Charade

On October 7, after the destruction of the separation fence in Gaza, the
collapse of Israeli defenses, military bases, and sites, and the
Palestinian Resistance's captivation of Israeli occupation soldiers,
Palestinian civilians mobilized to Israeli settlements near the envelope
and kidnapped settlers rendering the Resistance factions' tallying process
more difficult and less accurate.

The Resistance could not measure the tangible ramifications that unfolded
immediately, especially amid the launching of intense and constant Israeli
airstrikes, targeting the entirety of the Gaza Strip.

Taking this into consideration, members of a well-known family in Rafah
kidnapped two Israeli settlers, Fernando Simon Marman (60) and Louis Har
(70)
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iof-claim-retrieved-two-captives-from-southern-gaza-city-of>,
who would later be claimed to have been retrieved by the IOF.

The captives were taken to a house in Rafah, where the leader of the family
clan had put them under the protection of his brother and cousins. They
were tasked with providing them with food and the necessary medical care.
To preserve their protection, the members had been moving them from
location to location, while "Israel" carried out its military offensive in
Gaza.

However, when the leader was martyred in Khan Younis in January, the three
members became the sole protectors of the captives, with no responsible
director available to refer to. Therefore, the clan acted on their own
diligence and continued moving Marman and Har, the Israeli captives, until
they finally settled in a house in the Shaboura refugee camp, according to *Al
Mayadeen*'s sources.

Since the members acted on their own will and were independent of an
organized association, Louis Har, one of the captives, was able to
manipulate the members and bribe them with an escape out of Gaza and
provide them with whatever requests they made, alleging that his daughter
owned a giant Israeli company that would be able to cement his promises.
The Palestinian men were eventually convinced and called Har's daughter.

Har's daughter then established a channel of communication with the three
men and constantly conducted calls that were monitored by Israeli
intelligence. To further gain their trust, Har's daughter sent the three
men's relatives in London and Sweden monetary sums and offered that they
accompany the captives back to the occupied territories, claiming she would
guarantee their safety, information obtained by *Al Mayadeen*'s sources
revealed.

However, her offer was rejected, but a deal was made by which the woman
would give the members an already-agreed-on monetary sum in exchange for
the release of the captives, and a promise that the men could escape Gaza
to Egypt, then to a European country.
Terms of the deal

*Al Mayadeen*'s sources detailed that the deal brokered between the men and
the captive's daughter, tailored and monitored by the Israeli occupation
intelligence forces, included the transportation of the captives to the
vicinity of the Gaza envelope, where Har's daughter claimed would be
stationed at a location hidden from Israeli occupation forces.

As per the deal, one of the men was supposed to go to a location in Rafah's
vicinity, after it was besieged from all sides, to meet the captive's
daughter and obtain the sum. Once that was done, his relatives would be
called to confirm the acquisition of the money, and to greenlight their
move to another location where the captives would be released after he
leaves with the money.

Three dates were set to complete the deal, however, the captive's daughter
would call ahead of time to delay based on personal security concerns and
fears, until one last definitive date would be set on February 12 at 1 a.m.
A deception operation

When the first man arrived at the agreed location to meet the captive's
daughter, the brutal Israeli military operation was launched in Rafah,
after Israeli intelligence, through monitoring the calls, pinpointed the
location of the house where Har and Marman were being held and the number
of people residing there.

In an act of deception, the Israeli military operation targeted all sides
of Rafah, except the near vicinity of the house. Israeli occupation
soldiers then went into the house and retrieved the captives. The man who
had left to meet the captive's daughter is speculated to have been either
detained or killed, which rebuts the Israeli claims of concocting a
"secret" operation that led them to the house where the captives had been
and "the confrontation against armed men inside the apartment and
neighboring buildings throughout the operation."

Therefore, based on the obtained information, the occupation deliberated
the fabrication of a "complex and cohesive operation" to falsely promote a
major accomplishment for the feeble occupation "army" that has failed to
retrieve one single captive in its four-month and still ongoing military
offensive on Gaza. It also served to polish Benjamin Netanyahu
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/anti-netanyahu-bloc-on-the-rise--smotrich-s-zionist-party-ou>'s
image as settlers and captives' families protested against him and his
policies, specifically after several settlers were killed
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/iof-kill-three-israeli-captives-with-poisonous-gas--haaretz>
by reckless and vicious IOF bombing in Gaza.
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