Israeli media has debunked the ultra-Orthodox group Zaka’s gruesome October 7 atrocity stories, but the American press won’t do it.

Zaka stories have been essential to justifying Israel’s all-out war against Gaza, which has killed around 30,000 Palestinians in less than five months. Speaking at the United Nations in December, Zaka deputy commander Simcha Greiniman broke down while describing alleged atrocities. He later told the same stories to a meeting of British parliamentarians.

Even when Western media outlets have questioned Landau, the inquiries were half-hearted. The Times asked Landau “about reports, attributed to him, that children had been beheaded on Oct. 7.” It reported: “Mr. Landau denied making the claim, though he acknowledged sometimes misspeaking in the immediate aftermath of the attack. What he saw himself, he said, was a small, burned body with at least part of the head missing, perhaps severed by the force of a blast. It was unclear, he added, if it was the body of teenager or someone younger.”

While the Times said the statements had been “attributed” to Landau, there is no dispute he said them. He told the stories on camera, and the clips were posted widely online. He told CNN he found “a body, of a 14, 15-year-old. Head chopped off. We were looking around for the head. Couldn’t find it.” On India’s Republic TV, Landau said of beheaded children, “Yes, this occurred. This happened.” He made similar comments to Channel 14 Israel and CBS News. There is no evidence Hamas beheaded children or babies. As The Intercept reported at the time, the Israeli military said it couldn’t confirm the claims just four days after the attack.

Media outlets, including Israeli television news programs, have debunked numerous stories about dead babies, calling them “fictional.”

  • AutoTL;DRBEnglish
    2•9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Assigned to collect human remains after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel, Landau and his fellow Zaka members riveted media outlets worldwide with the horrific atrocities they saw.

    Speaking through tears at the Jerusalem Press Club shortly after the attack, Landau described finding a pregnant woman in Kibbutz Be’eri in a “big puddle of blood, face down.”

    A blockbuster Haaretz report found after October 7, senior military leaders sidelined Israel Defense Forces soldiers specializing in recovering bodies and preserving evidence and sent in untrained Zaka volunteers instead.

    Zaka reportedly turned massacre sites into a “war room for donations,” used corpses as fundraising props, “spread accounts of atrocities that never happened,” and botched forensics that are central to Israel’s claim that Hamas carried out a premeditated campaign of mass rape.

    They have been quoted by Reuters, CNN, New York Times, BBC, The Guardian, NBC News, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and many other outlets — with few, if any, mentions of past scandals or present controversies.

    Israeli government officials, in pushing for a total war on Palestinians, portray Hamas as another Islamic State, the Iraq- and Syria-based terror group that shocked the world by making women sexual slaves and posting a spate of execution videos beginning around 2014.

    The original article contains 2,687 words, the summary contains 209 words. Saved 92%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!