Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian enclave have shared dozens of videos mocking the destruction of Gaza, trivializing the bombings and playing with objects found in abandoned houses

One of the TikTok trends is to show the process of loading a projectile into a tank and firing it. Another is to put trance music to a video, along with the words “2-3, sha-ger.” This is the order that a military drone operator is given to drop a bomb, with the syllables separated so that the message is clear. The trend began with a video from the Israeli army that attracted a lot of attention — receiving one million views — and has ended up becoming a multipurpose viral expression.

On TikTok, the war in Gaza is a game Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian enclave have shared dozens of videos mocking the destruction of Gaza, trivializing the bombings and playing with objects found in abandoned houses Antonio Pita Jerusalem - Dec 10, 2023 - 11:25 CET Guerra entre Israel y Gaza Image Aleternative Text: Israeli soldiers in a screenshot of a TikTok video in which soldiers appear mocking the destruction in Gaza.

On TikTok, the war in Gaza is a game. The ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave saw the entry of an unknown number of Israeli soldiers, each with a cellphone in their pocket. With these cellphones, some soldiers are sharing videos in which they mock the destruction in the Gaza Strip, dedicate controlled explosions to one of their children, rob houses abandoned by Palestinians and play with shovels. These are dozens of videos — in several of which it has been possible to verify their location and in others the authenticity of the profile — taken by the soldiers inside Gaza, mostly men between 18 and 40 years old.

One of the TikTok trends is to show the process of loading a projectile into a tank and firing it. Another is to put trance music to a video, along with the words “2-3, sha-ger.” This is the order that a military drone operator is given to drop a bomb, with the syllables separated so that the message is clear. The trend began with a video from the Israeli army that attracted a lot of attention — receiving one million views — and has ended up becoming a multipurpose viral expression.

Also popular are videos filmed from inside an armored vehicle or bulldozer. In some, a comical voice says that they need the all-terrain vehicle to get around traffic jams. In one, a building is being demolished; in another, a car is steamrolled out of the way, as the user comments: “I have stopped counting the cars I have destroyed.”

The videos convey the change in national mood since the Hamas attack on October 7. They often use the Israeli hit song Charbu Darbu, which has lyrics such as “We’ve brought the whole army and I swear there will be no forgiveness,” and “every dog gets what he deserves in the end.”

In the videos, soldiers are also seen playing with objects apparently found in homes: cycling around on children’s bicycles or hitting a ball with a beach tennis paddle — a supposed gibe at the claims that Israeli soldiers feared entering Gaza. In another video, a soldier holds a silver pendant while the person filming tells a couple that a gift awaits them from Gaza. “Made in Gaza” adds the soldier, imitating the Arabic accent. Sarcasm and messages to loved ones

Some videos mock the destruction in the Gaza Strip, where more than half of buildings have been damaged, and entire neighborhoods have been wiped out, especially in the north. In one, verified on Rashid Street in Gaza City, a barely standing building is seen while a narrator jokes about the advantage of living in a place where fresh air comes in from all four sides. Another, with verified coordinates and bucolic music in the background, shows a row of damaged beachfront properties with the message: “A free hotel in Gaza.”

Two soldiers simulate a real estate advertisement for those without subsidized housing in Israel. “Now there is a bit of chaos and explosions, but here we are going to work so that there will soon be new land […] With God’s help, soon there will be an apartment here for you too,” says one of them. In another video, the TikTok user asks for the nearest branch of Aroma, the largest coffee shop network. They receive instructions and are told that it does not open until 9:00 a.m. The video then pans to the desolate landscape of the street.

There are many others. Like the video filmed within the Supreme Court (later blown up by Israeli troops), which has the message: “There are no trials until further notice.” Or the one where the TikTok user ironically sings “It was my house” in a destroyed apartment. A soldier, who says he is inside the Al Shifa hospital in Gaza City, complains that he cannot make an appointment to have his teeth cleaned, as he stands in front of the broken machine that hands out tickets for appointments. Other videos use puns. One asks “Do you know why Hamas only has choruses?” ― “Because it does not have batim,” the word that in Hebrew means both verses and houses.

Inside an apartment, a soldier protests because two others have broken a candle. Then he turns the phone around to show that everything is in ruins. In one of the most recent videos, another soldier is seen smashing children’s gifts and stationery products of a store located in Jabalia, the refugee camp in northern Gaza. He says the products are on sale as the person recording the video laughs.

Some are not sarcastic, but rather take advantage of Israel’s presence in Gaza to send messages to loved ones. For example, in one video, a TikTok user dedicates the controlled explosion of a building to his daughter because she is turning two years old, while another asks his girlfriend to marry him amid applause “in the heart of Gaza,” as reads the message in the video.

There are also ideological videos, with messages in favor of reestablishing Gush Katif, the Israeli bloc of settlement with 8,000 Jewish residents that was founded in Gaza shortly after the Six-Day War in 1967, and remained until the Ariel Sharon’s government ordered its evacuation in 2005. According to a survey, 22% of the Israeli population support having settlements in Gaza, and some ministers of the Israeli government openly back the idea. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, has made it clear that “it is not realistic,” while U.S. President Joe Biden said Israel occupying Gaza would be “a big mistake.”

For this reason, in one of the videos, a soldier sends a message to Netanyahu: “Listen, Bibi: We found [the Gazans], we expelled them and we settled.” In another, about 15 soldiers sing “We will return” to the sound of a guitar. In a third, a soldier erases the Arabic words that were written with chalk on the blackboard, apparently from a school, to hang an orange ribbon, the color of the movement against the evacuation of Gush Katif.

With reporting by Óscar Gutiérrez.

  • DdCno1@beehaw.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think you are aware of just how small this war is in terms of death toll compared to other wars that are currently going on. There is however a disproportionate number of articles (and thus also journalists) covering it:

    https://i.imgur.com/PosjdJ9.png

    This doesn’t meant that one should discard the suffering of the civilians caught in the crossfire. It’s horrible and I weep for every innocent who has to suffer because of the decision a small number of terrorists made - but it’s one thing to acknowledge that they died in this conflict and demand both parties to protect civilians and another entirely to claim that Israel is responsible for a record number of war crimes. Not every dead civilian is a war crime. Neither is not supplying your enemy with resources nor is bombing civilian infrastructure that is being used for military purposes. These safe zones were also established to protect civilians from the bulk of the ground fighting. At no point did Israel make the unrealistic promise that they would be safe from bombs. Given that Hamas operates from there and uses these places to stage massed unguided rocket attacks against civilians in Israel, this would be entirely unrealistic. Nobody in their right mind would deny Israel the right to strike these targets. You would do the same if you were in their place.

    • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
      4·
      1 year ago

      You are either willfully ignorant about how wrong what you’re saying is, or you are truly a lost cause.

      I don’t think you are aware of just how small this war is in terms of death toll compared to other wars that are currently going on.

      And I don’t think you realize just how many insane ratios this war is producing. For being so small, it is resulting in more aid worker, doctor, and journalist deaths than other, much larger wars. It has resulted in level of destruction (e.g. 60% of homes damaged) that hasn’t existed since WW2. The sheer percentages of children being killed versus adults (nevermind combatants), is just staggering.

      If your only defense is to say, “but who cares about ratios and percentages?”, then you’re just arguing that it’s okay to genocide small groups.

      And you want to talk actual numbers? More children were killed by Israel in the first 3 weeks of their brutal assault than have died in all global conflicts combined annually, since 2019. That was when the child death toll was “only” 3,400. Now it’s thousands more.

      But I’m suuuuuure you’re just weeping non-stop for them, right?

      Neither is not supplying your enemy with resources

      They are denying civilians water and food, and Israel is not the ones supplying those resources anyways, other countries are, and Israel is blocking them.

      nor is bombing civilian infrastructure that is being used for military purposes

      Which the water infra and power plants were not, but they were bombed anyways (and to be clear, Israel has never claimed that they were used to launch attacks, before you try to pull that out of your bum).

      At no point did Israel make the unrealistic promise that they would be safe from bombs.

      Ah yes, unrealistic to not bomb civilians. Of course. So smart. Why even have stipulations about war crimes, since apparently no one in a warzone can expect not to be killed indiscriminately anyways? Checkmate, human rights!

      Given that Hamas operates from there

      Hamas doesn’t “operate” from the 60% of residential buildings that have been damaged in Gaza, any more than the IDF could be said to “operate” from Israeli neighborhoods. Israel has shown no evidence (and in fact has been shown to have been dead wrong with their claims, such as at al-Shifa) that they are using the refugee camps and homes and businesses that Israel bombed to launch rockets (if they were all actually rocket launch sites, where were all the people actually living?). Simply having your soldiers live somewhere doesn’t make it a valid target, otherwise the rocket attacks into Israel are all justified too.

      There’s a reason that Israel is rapidly losing support on the world stage, and why it’s going to find itself a pariah state before too long.

      You would do the same if you were in their place.

      When you wake up and find that most of the world is rejecting your country’s claims of conducting a war legitimately, perhaps you should question why, rather than rushing to spew out half-baked justifications and appeals to empathize with an abused group becoming the abusers.

      • DdCno1@beehaw.org
        2·
        1 year ago

        It has resulted in level of destruction (e.g. 60% of homes damaged) that hasn’t existed since WW2.

        You need to ignore lots of wars to come to this conclusion. Korea would be one immediately after WW2 that makes this one look like child’s play. More recently, the wars in Chechnya, the Syrian civil war, the Sudanese civil war, the civil war in Myanmar, etc. pp. are all vastly more destructive. There is a single death camp in Syria where Assad had up to 13,000 people murdered.

        The sheer percentages of children being killed versus adults (nevermind combatants), is just staggering.

        Could this be, because Hamas produces fake numbers to weaponize outrage against Israel? Read this:

        https://nitter.net/Aizenberg55/status/1731753062622982386

        Israel is not the ones supplying those resources anyways, other countries are, and Israel is blocking them.

        Nonsense. Israel was supplying a significant portion of the strip’s power and electricity, as well as bringing in regular supplies of fuel and food. They stopped this on October 7. Israel has since continued this, even though they are not obliged, and also permitted foreign aid through the border crossing with Egypt. Meanwhile, Hamas have openly stolen a significant portion of these supplies, which is the actual reason why Israel stopped them in the first place. Hamas are the ones stealing from civilians and causing their suffering.

        water infra and power plants

        There’s only one power plant in Gaza, but you seem to have adopted the Hamas method of just making things up for outrage. I guess it’s rubbing off on you. As for the water infrastructure, do I need to remind you that Hamas is using water pipes to create unguided rockets to fire at Israeli population centers? That’s the actual indiscriminate bombing that few people are willing to talk about.

        Why even have stipulations about war crimes, since apparently no one in a warzone can expect not to be killed indiscriminately anyways?

        These rules are meant to not encourage the use of human shields, because this turns every group of civilians into a potential target. This isn’t difficult to understand - or at least it shouldn’t be. Many of the regulations of the Geneva Conventions are the least terrible solutions to awful questions. That’s sadly how the world works.

        Hamas doesn’t “operate” from the 60% of residential buildings that have been damaged in Gaza

        In a single so-called refugee camp in Northern Gaza (it’s a normal suburb with houses - it merely inherited the status due to unique UN rules that solely exist for Palestinians and no other people), almost half of all buildings were rigged with explosives. I’m sure whenever Hamas blows one of these up, it gets added to the amount blamed on Israel, just like when one of the 20% of rockets fired from Gaza falls on Gaza instead of hitting a random target in Israel.

        Israel has shown no evidence

        Here’s a video that shows rockets being launched right from the middle of a refugee camp:

        https://old.reddit.com/r/2ndYomKippurWar/comments/1772v7g/footage_shows_hamas_launching_rockets_from/

        That’s just one of countless pieces of evidence that you choose to ignore in favor of that one-sided victim narrative of yours.

        and in fact has been shown to have been dead wrong with their claims, such as at al-Shifa

        You mean where they found weapons and a tunnel with an armored door with a firing port? That one? Or the al-Shifa hospital where a surveillance camera recording shows terrorists bringing in a hostage? Or was that a different al-Shifa?

        Simply having your soldiers live somewhere doesn’t make it a valid target, otherwise the rocket attacks into Israel are all justified too.

        I can tell you are not even trying to argue in good faith.

        your country’s claims

        I’m not Israeli.

        half-baked justifications

        At least I’m not ignoring evidence that is right in the open.

        Let me ask you this: How should Israel have reacted to the terror attack on October 7? What would, in your eyes, an appropriate, justified response look like? Please be honest.

        • t3rmit3@beehaw.org
          2·
          1 year ago

          You mean where they found weapons and a tunnel with an armored door with a firing port?

          Yes, that one. The one where all that was behind that door was a room with 2 cots and a table, where Israel had claimed (complete with a fancy 3D animation) that there was an entire multi-level command center with tens of rooms, housing potentially hundreds of Hamas fighters. That one, that didn’t exist.

          Or the al-Shifa hospital where a surveillance camera recording shows terrorists bringing in a hostage?

          This is always such a weird argument. Yeah, of course Hamas brought the hostage there for treatment. They were trying to keep them alive. They’re also the government in Gaza, so it would be no different than Israeli military bringing one of their hostages to an Israeli hospital. Are you under the impression that hospitals that treat war wounded are military targets?

          Let me ask you this: How should Israel have reacted to the terror attack on October 7? What would, in your eyes, an appropriate, justified response look like? Please be honest.

          First I’d say that Netanyahu should stop giving funds to and allowing funds to flow to Hamas in order to prop them up as a bid to prevent a peaceful 2-state solution.

          Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

          Then, I’d say they should have conducted a ground invasion backed with actually targeted strikes on Hamas targets using precision weapons that the US is so enamored with.

          and also permitted foreign aid through the border crossing with Egypt

          Permitted a pittance, after blocking all of it initially.

          I’m not Israeli.

          That just makes your caping for their genocide and ethnic cleansing even more ridiculous.