Source: TheGrayzone.com
Haaretz has yet to admit it jumped the gun when it dismissed The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal as a ‘conspiracy theorist’ for documenting crucial evidence that Israeli forces killed Israelis on October 7. But new reports by the same outlet show we were right all along.
Israeli outlet Haaretz has acknowledged a police report confirmed partygoers at a festival three miles from the Gaza border were killed by the Israeli military on October 7, just two weeks after the publication accused Grayzone editor-in-chief Max Blumenthal of spreading “conspiracy theories” for reporting on the story.
In an article published November 19, Haaretz reporter Josh Breiner wrote that an official investigation into the deaths of Nova festival attendees “revealed that an IDF combat helicopter that arrived at the scene from the Ramat David base fired at the terrorists and apparently also hit some of the revelers who were there,” citing “a police source.”
BREAKING: Israel’s @Haaretz reports that an Israeli official investigation has determined that an @IDF helicopter killed Israeli civilians at the Nova rave on 7 October. Text in screenshot translated via Google. Original Hebrew here: https://t.co/L0Kx2j9UPM pic.twitter.com/TN6wu5qY4n
— Ali Abunimah (@AliAbunimah) November 18, 2023
The finding should come as little surprise to the liberal Israeli publication. On November 9, Haaretz released an audio interview with Israeli reserve pilot Col. Nof Erez, who said the Netanyahu administration likely invoked the notorious Hannibal Directive, which dictates that Israelis taken captive should be killed by the military rather than left in the hands of Palestinian militants.
“Hannibal Directive was probably deployed because once you detect a hostage situation, this is Hannibal,” Erez told the outlet in a recording published November 9.
“What we saw here was a mass Hannibal,” the pilot concludes.
Israeli Col. Nof Erez described a “mass Hannibal” targeting by the Israeli military of Hamas militants AND Israeli citizens on October 7 to prevent captives from getting to Gaza
See: the Hannibal Dorective pic.twitter.com/BvVw5eleWo
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 20, 2023
The admission came just two days after Haaretz listed The Grayzone’s editor among those it accused of being “largely” responsible for the proliferation of “conspiracy theories.”
Pointing specifically to “a screenshot of a video denying the atrocities of October 7… From the X account of Max Blumenthal,” Haaretz’s Sami Cohen breathlessly denounced a recent exposé by Propaganda & Co which relied heavily on The Grayzone’s reporting:
“Another video claims that the massacre at the rave near Kibbutz Re’im never took place” and that the deaths there merely “stemmed from an exchange of fire between the army and police on one side and Hamas on the other,” Cohen’s piece asserted.
“The deniers claim that Hamas was on its way to Israeli army bases, encountered police and army roadblocks, and the revelers who fled the party got caught in the crossfire,” the Haaretz writer scoffed.
But that is exactly what happened, according to Haaretz. As the November 19 piece explained, not only did an Israeli police investigation find that “military helicopter that fired at terrorists apparently also hit some revelers,” there is also “a growing assessment in the security establishment that the terrorists who carried out the massacre on October 7 did not know in advance about the Nova festival held near Kibbutz Ra’im.”
Israel warns press against friendly fire revelations, threatens foreign media
As the revelations spread across social media, the Israeli police issued a statement denying that Tel Aviv’s forces carried out the massacre and warned domestic outlets to “take responsibility for their publications and only base stories on official sources.” Israeli officials have sought to stifle coverage of their actions in Gaza, with newly-passed emergency regulations allowing police to crack down on critical reporters accused of “harming national morale.”…