JERUSALEM – A spokesman for Gaza’s second-largest terrorist organization, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), has questioned the group’s propaganda tactics and media coverage during interrogation by Israeli military intelligence following his arrest at al-Shifa hospital. Shared inside information about cynical operations. in Gaza City last month.
An eight-minute video of the interrogation of PIJ political bureau spokesperson Tariq Salami Osa Abu Shrouf was released by the Israeli military on Monday. In the video, Shrouf can be heard detailing how the US-designated terrorist organization uses Arabic and international media to create a false narrative about what is happening in the Gaza Strip.
He also spoke about how terrorists made extensive use of all Gaza’s hospitals and many ambulances during battles with Israeli forces during the six-month war.
In a confession, the spokesperson said that the explosion at one of Gaza’s main hospitals early in the fighting was not caused by Israel, as many international news organizations hastened to report, but by a misexploded PIJ rocket. said.
Biden warns Prime Minister Netanyahu that he will change Gaza policy unless Israel protects civilians
Ambulances carrying victims of an Israeli airstrike crowd the entrance to the emergency ward of Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, October 15, 2023. (Dawood Nemer/AFP via Getty Images)
According to U.S. intelligence agencies, Schroof said PIJ’s leadership “fabricated a story about the Israeli attack on the hospital” in an attempt to “erasure” PIJ’s direct involvement in the attack, which killed more than 100 people. .
“While it is true that this story is false, we wanted to promote it,” the spokesperson said, adding that the terrorist organization’s communications arm “co-opts certain narratives” based on “special interests.” He explained how he made decisions.
“We relied on articles in the international press,” Schroof told investigators.
“Most international media outlets will no doubt not even mention this Islamic Jihad spokesperson’s revelations in their coverage,” said Simon Prosker, editorial director of Honest Reporting, an Israeli organization that monitors coverage of Israel in international news outlets. told Fox News Digital.
“If they mentioned it, they would have to question the entire coverage of the conflict and how foreign media outlets have been manipulated, or sophisticated terrorist propaganda at Israel’s expense. It will highlight whether they were willing to participate in the activities.”
Palestinian jihadists participate in a rally to celebrate the Israeli shootings in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza Strip, on April 8, 2022. (Majidi Fatih/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Terrorists affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad joined thousands of Hamas terrorists who invaded southern Israel on October 7, committing widespread massacres of around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnappings of another 250. participated in.
This massive terrorist attack, recorded by both Hamas and PIJ terrorists with GoPros and cell phones, sparked a war with Israel.
Shrouf told Israeli interrogators that since the start of the war, the terrorist group has distorted footage coming out of the Gaza Strip in order to blame Israel alone for the documented suffering of more than 2 million civilians. He said they have been working together.
Anti-Israel demonstrators’ red hands are a “symbol” rooted in “blood enthusiasm”: expert
He acknowledged that PIJ’s purpose was to distract Palestinian civilians suffering from deplorable living conditions caused by the ongoing war that PIJ provoked. And the group told journalists that “life is our right,” “we want things to return to normal,” and “our children should be like other children around the world.” I want people to live the same way,” he said, using standard talking points.
Anadolu Agency photojournalist Muhamed Dahlan holds a damaged camera after being shot with a rubber bullet by an Israeli soldier during a protest near the Gaza-Israel border in Gaza City, Gaza, on October 18, 2019. . (Ali Jadala/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Shrouf also explained how PIJ’s top leader, Ziyad al-Nahla, is in daily contact with the organization’s communications department, which also works with its Hamas counterpart to paint the desired narrative. They were working closely together. He confessed that PIJ’s communications team checked journalists’ articles before publication. If they don’t fit into the group’s desired narrative, we prevent them from going out.
“So, if you don’t like it, it won’t be published?” the interrogator asked Schroof.
“Of course not, because journalists need us to do more interviews,” he replied.
“This is not surprising. We have been observing for years how Islamist terrorist groups use civilian infrastructure to recruit terrorists, facilitate terrorism, and launch attacks.” said Khaled Hassan, a political risk and intelligence analyst with more than 13 years of experience in Islamic extremist organizations. Middle East, told Fox News Digital.
Smoke rises during an Israeli attack near al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, March 28, 2024, as the conflict continues between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. (AFP)
As a result, in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and many Muslim-majority countries, “mosques and hospitals associated with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist terrorist organizations are under strict security 24/7, 365 days a year. “We’re being watched,” he said.
“Furthermore, their modus operandi fundamentally relies on creating the impression that they are victims of oppression and oppression,” Hassan said. “To that end, killing their own nationals and civilians is generally a greater objective for them.
Hamas defector tells pro-Palestinian activist in cruel argument that they belong to ‘mental asylum’
“Western governments have largely ignored these widely recognized facts when dealing with Israel’s war against Hamas,” he added. This strategy was successful because “they empower and embolden the terrorists.”
Matty Friedman, an Israeli-Canadian writer who previously worked as a correspondent for the Associated Press in Jerusalem, said that many mainstream news outlets clearly “reported the Gaza story based on information that was not only false but propaganda. “
Tayseer Jabari speaks to supporters of Islamic Jihad during a ceremony in Gaza City, Gaza, on November 12, 2021. (Majidi Fatih/TPS)
“Groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad know exactly what they are doing, using civilian cover to inflict extreme harm on innocent people. “It is blaming Israel and using the resulting international outrage to tie Israel’s hands,” Friedman said in an investigation of international media reports. He described his bias against Israel in an explosive column in 2014.
“While this interrogation has provided a glimpse into the system, the real answers to the question of media misconduct lie with the Western editors, journalists and NGOs we have been working with for years,” he said. .
Worrying trend of ‘radical’ pro-Palestinian groups increasingly targeting places of worship in protests
International media covering the Gaza war have been highly critical of Israel, particularly Israel’s refusal to allow journalists to enter Gaza independently to cover the war. Instead, most foreign news organizations rely on reporting from local Palestinian journalists, some of whom complain that Israel is deliberately targeting them but who are complicit with Hamas’s propaganda machine. Some have been accused of doing so.
On Monday, the Foreign Press Association (FPA), a nonprofit organization representing journalists from international news organizations reporting from Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, criticized Israel’s policies and called out the “unprecedented” issued a statement pointing out the threat and damage caused. Palestinian journalists in Gaza “bravely covering the story.”
A rocket is fired toward Israel from the Gaza Strip, seen from southern Israel on October 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Ariel Shalit)
“The decision whether to stand on the ground in Gaza should be left to individual international news organizations,” the statement said. “The blanket ban has limited the world’s ability to witness the true cost of war on all sides.”
Veteran journalist Rahav Kharkov told FOX News Digital that while he agreed that Israel should allow foreign journalists to report from inside the Gaza Strip, “it does not mean that journalists should consider the motivations of their sources.” “This does not mean that we should shirk our responsibility to verify the facts.”
“It has been clear for more than a decade that Gaza is a place where journalistic ethics are dying,” she says. “In 2014, journalists reported that Hamas used Shifa Hospital for terrorist activities and later withdrew after being threatened by Hamas.”
He said the situation has only gotten worse over the past six months, with major media organizations defending “photojournalists who sympathized with the terrorists who committed the October 7 massacre.”
A Palestinian photographer hides from tear gas fired by Israeli security forces during a protest in the southern Gaza Strip on August 25, 2021. (Majidi Fatih/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Harkov also noted how reporters treat Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesmen as “trusted sources.”
“The proof is in the type of reporting they are doing,” she said, highlighting the Al Ahli hospital strike in which a PIJ spokesperson “fed them the message that it was actually Israel.” did. A PIJ rocket that misfired. ”
