‘Lies, misinformation’: Israeli military produced videos to justify Gaza genocide

A new analysis has found that the Israeli military produced three-dimensional or animated visualizations not based on verified intelligence but fabricated content and digital assets to justify the Tel Aviv regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

A months-long investigation by the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, together with the research collective Viewfinder, the Swiss network SRF, and the Scottish outlet The Ferret analyzed 43 animations released by the Israeli army over the past two years and found that many contain “serious spatial inaccuracies or pre-fabricated assets”.

The videos, including those depicting the alleged tunnels beneath the al-Shifa Hospital and a UN-run school in Gaza, are “sourced not from classified intelligence but rather from commercial libraries, content creators, and cultural institutions,” the study found.

The clips are typically published across the Israeli military’s Telegram, YouTube, Facebook, X, and Instagram channels, and may be paired with a press conference by the occupation army’s spokesperson.

International media outlets will use the ready-made visuals, in many cases amplifying them uncritically.

“Instead of revealing hidden truths — as Israeli military officials insist, and as the international media readily amplifies — the visualizations actually blur them,” according to the investigation.

It further said that interviews with soldiers involved in the production of these videos further illuminate how the Israeli army prioritizes the aesthetic value of the animations over their accuracy.

The analysis also found that more than half of the videos contained 3D assets, which were taken from third-party sources.

Over 50 different third-party assets were identified in total, which were replicated hundreds of times across animations of sites supposedly in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran, it added.

“A parking lot from Washington state, scans from a boat-building workshop in Scotland, and commercial storefront kits from the video game industry — all of these have been inserted, without credit, into animations presented as ‘illustrations’ of Hamas bunkers or Iranian weapons facilities.”

Eyad Elyan, a Palestinian academic at Scotland’s Robert Gordon University specializing in AI and 3D modeling, said he was “deeply disturbed” to learn that Israel has been using Scottish assets in its propaganda animations, saying the practice aligns with the regime’s “long history of exploiting others’ resources and employing every means possible to promote baseless claims.”

“What is especially troubling, however, is how such fabricated content is uncritically accepted and amplified by mainstream media outlets,” he continued. “Much of this material consisted of outright falsehoods — for instance, the widely circulated animation alleging that Hamas operated a command center beneath the al-Shifa Hospital. No such facility was found, but [this claim] was used to destroy almost the entire healthcare system in Gaza.”

Scottish lawmaker Patrick Harvie said the Israeli military made and distributed the videos in order to “justify” its Gaza genocide.

“When lies and misinformation are such a core part of an army’s strategy, it makes it all the more important that our governments take a stand and act to stop the atrocities that they are inflicting,” he added.

Israel unleashed its brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian Hamas resistance group carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Tel Aviv regime failed to achieve its declared objectives of eliminating Hamas and freeing all captives in Gaza, despite killing, according to the health ministry of Gaza, 67,194 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 169,890 others.