Mass murder of Israeli citizens by country’s own military during Hamas raid has been a topic of discussion in Israeli papers and TV for some time – now it is an acknowledged fact, yet UK media still talking as if it never happened
Israeli media has begun to freely discuss as fact the mass murder of Israeli citizens by so-called ‘friendly fire’ from the IDF during the 7 October Hamas raid near Israel’s border with Gaza.
The reality of the killings has not been treated with any serious doubt by Israeli papers and broadcasters for weeks – they could hardly do otherwise, when they have interviewed survivors who have talked about it, Israeli police have admitted it and even the IDF issued a statement to Israeli press saying it would not be ‘morally sound’ to investigate the ‘immense and complex’ deaths its troops, tankers and pilots had caused on that day.
But now a new article in Israeli paper Haaretz – including quotes from a similar article by Yediot Aharonot, a more right-wing paper than Haaretz – discusses the ‘friendly fire’ attacks by Israeli tank fire and helicopter missiles as established fact with Asa Kasher, the Israeli army’s ‘ethics chief’. For example:
Kasher discussed another incident that took place on October 7, on the Israeli border with Gaza. According to an investigation conducted by the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, troops received orders to prevent hostages from being taken into Gaza by force, if necessary.
Around 12:00 P.M. on October 7, IDF helicopters strafed cars attempting to cross the border.
The burned cars and incinerated bodies were caused, according to experts, by US-made ‘Hellfire’ rockets fired by Israeli helicopters. A number of Israeli civilians – including children – were similarly killed by tank shells deliberately fired into kibbutz homes. Kasher discussed those with Haaretz too and the paper noted:
According to [survivor Yasmin] Porat, after she was released by a Hamas terrorist, she was questioned by the Police Special Anti-Terror Unit and told them that there were about 40 terrorists and 14 civilian hostages still in the house. Dagan was among the hostages inside the house, where she says an Israeli tank fired two shells at it. She was the only Israeli to survive, and she has confirmed Porat’s account.
Kasher is no ‘bleeding heart liberal’ eager to criticise Israel’s genocidal military. On the contrary, he is a right-winger who has openly valued Israeli lives above those of Palestinian civilians – in 2006 Asher wrote that Israeli troops must never be put at risk to protect Arab civilians, summarised by Haaretz:
Professor Asa Kasher, who compiled the IDF’s Code of Ethics, said that the restraint exercised by Israel to save civilian lives when bombing a terrorist apartment was a “mistake” that cost more Israeli lives later…
Kasher said it was inconceivable to let people be killed in Israel because the only way to prevent it involved killing dozens of Palestinians. “It is unacceptable to let people get killed here even if the number of people killed there is expected to be bigger,” he said.
Kasher considered the idea of Israeli soldiers deliberately firing at Israeli civilians ‘horrifying’, saying:
How is it possible that a high ranking army official would give a command that so immediately and definitely endangers the life of so many civilians? It’s just horrifying.”
But Kasher doesn’t for a moment deny or doubt that it happened.
As journalist Jonathan Cook has pointed out, despite the open discussion of the mass ‘friendly fire’ deaths on the day of the Hamas raid, the UK media continues to discuss the deaths as if they were all caused by Hamas. In an email article to subscribers, Cook writes:
So how is it possible that the BBC and the rest of the western media keep revisiting the horrors of October 7 but never to raise these issues , even though they have been so prominent in the Israeli public space for many weeks?
The only possible answer is that western media outlets are consciously censoring this story because it directly conflicts with the West’s ideological and strategic agenda. It raises disturbing questions about western complicity in genocide.
Once again, the establishment media’s unwillingness to report the real story starkly gives the lie to their claim to be ‘free and fearless’. In truth, they are there to uphold a narrative of western moral and civilisational superiority. They are there to justify the West’s wars – and the war industry and resource-grab portfolios that our economies, and the media corporations themselves, are so heavily invested in.
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