A memory dump of drones captured by the Palestinian resistance allowed the atrocities committed by the occupation army to be demonstrated against defenseless civilians in Gaza (French)
The genocide targeting the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip (2023-2024) was characterized as a visible war, accompanied by cameras from every direction, in which image clashes with image and scene with scene. There are false, fabricated and fabricated images and clips that collude with the atrocities of the occupation. Others remove the curtains on the practices of concealment and deception, and may be extracted from the helmet of a soldier carrying a camera or from a data folder tracking an Israeli march that has been seized.
Scenes extracted from cameras tracking the Israeli occupation army continue to appear, documenting atrocities that were intended to remain hidden, and in which the atrocities of the ongoing genocide are revealed in new dimensions and unexpected perspectives, unlike the typical scenes pushed by army propaganda.
Examples of the flour massacre clips
The occupation army resorted to promoting fabricated scenes when it tried to justify the brutal flour massacre it committed against crowds of Palestinians near the Nabulsi roundabout in Gaza City on the evening of February 29, 2024. There were conflicting accounts issued by war commanders and occupation army spokesmen regarding the circumstances of the killing of at least 118 Palestinians and the wounding of 760. others in that shocking incident that embarrassed the supporters of the occupation and its army on both sides of the Atlantic, but those narratives agreed on a common meaning, which is to evade responsibility, blame the victims, and dehumanize these people who gathered to provide food for their children, while the terrible war of starvation intensified against them.
Attention turned to the analysis of the video material promoted by the occupation army, and it became clear that the aerial scenes taken at night were clearly fabricated, as they were fragmented and inconsistent with each other, in addition to contradicting the claims of army spokesmen and Israeli war leaders. But the messages hidden in these scenes go beyond the factual content they contain. In them, human victims appear as nothing more than small moving dots on the ground. What does this suggest?
These are scenes shot from a distant, overhead perspective, which is absolutely perfect for blurring the humanity of these “animate beings.” These scenes were visual promotion that was intended to support genocide propaganda in a specific way as well. The suggestive impressions that these scenes conveyed would neutralize any chance of emotional interaction with the event. The camera of the extermination army was accompanied by certain “vital gatherings” that hardly differed in perceptual reception. Because of its dimensions and the specifications of its appearance from any insect colony, this incites the visual taste and public sentiment to make it easy to eliminate it collectively as if it were an ant valley!
It is likely that the occupation army had other filmed scenes of that terrible flour massacre, but it chose to cut only some selected aerial scenes, and went beyond what its armored vehicles and observation observatories that followed it in the field filmed; Because it will expose what was committed against the crowds of defenseless Palestinians at the aid distribution point at the Nabulsi roundabout. In addition, horizontal photography gives the humanitarian and tragic situation the opportunity to be close and present in the scene, unlike vertical photography far from the air.
This fundamental difference was evident through the scenes broadcast by Al Jazeera from the field of the flour massacre, in which aspects of the incidents of indiscriminate shooting by occupation army armored vehicles towards crowds of people were revealed. The privilege of close-up and color photography in “Al Jazeera’s” night scenes also highlighted the human emotions evoked by the brutal massacre. Al Jazeera's camera placed viewers around the world in the heart of the field and facilitated the crowds' participation in the experience of symbolic shelter from the flames of brutal bombing. It is not the same in the visual scene that the audience is in the corner of the perpetrator who is being bombed, as in the occupation army's propaganda scenes, and in the corner of the victim who is being annihilated. As in the scenes of faithful journalistic monitoring on the ground.
The occupation army’s aerial photographs of the flour massacre were not a passing coincidence, as the visual messages sent by its propaganda from the Gaza field are careful to disrupt any opportunity to feel the humanity of the Palestinian victims, who in the narrative of the leaders of war and genocide are merely “monsters” or “human animals.” As it was said - explicitly - in Hebrew: “Hayut Adam”!
Preference for aerial bombardment scenes
The occupation army has been promoting stereotypical black and white scenes of aerial bombardment every day, as it gives it a certain advantage through the impression it creates of the alleged efficiency in completing field tasks and the accuracy of tracking and targeting through specific coordinates, despite the fact that the act of bombing destroyed most of the civilian facilities and homes in the Gaza Strip. Gaza in general, and renewed the covenant with scorched earth traditions.
There is another advantage that aerial photographs have over the propaganda of modern armies: Is that it helps to withhold empathy from the targets, as the fixed or moving targets that appear in aerial photography appear to be devoid of clear human characteristics that can be felt, and the requirements of humanization are rather absent, as they do not show faces, features, or emotions that might trigger an emotional identification with those who fall. In the field or they are brave, and in this context it is possible to notice the opposite effect of the scene of the assassination of the prostrate resister, which appeared to the public in an epic form when the details became clear.
Then, the audience who receives these graphic propaganda meals is emotionally placed in the control cockpit, which is motivated to engage in targeting. Viewers experience the steps of identifying the target within the shooting range, then pressing the control button, and the launch of the deadly and destructive missile, the effect of which is visible only in a silent visual manner. Despite the gray cloud of smoke and dust that suddenly appears.
This visual experience complements the experience of targeting in the world of electronic and online games, so viewers of stereotypical war propaganda depicted become in the position of the player who is shooting from afar, meaning that the audience is emotionally lured into the trench of the attacking party and the opportunity for any possible feelings of sympathy to emerge with the human or material target that has been targeted is disrupted. It was as if he had to utter his usual shout after the alleged precise targeting: Wow!
Many hidden images and scenes
Black and white aerial photographs of bombings remain ideal for propaganda of the brutal war of extermination. With their dark characteristics, distant shots, and overhead perspective, they do not give the humanity of the victims any chance to appear in the scene. In fact, the graphic narrative that the occupation army pushes about the incidents of targeting on the ground is based on an elaborate and fabricated selectivity. The scenes are carefully selected from the abundance of graphic material stored in data storage containers, and they are usually required to be distorted and dehumanized as well.
This army is waging a brutal war of extermination in a narrow area of the air that is considered the most monitored and photographed in the world. Reconnaissance and surveillance planes hover around the clock over every part of the Gaza Strip, monitoring with advanced cameras everything stationary and moving on the ground.
There is no doubt that many of the scenes seen by the eyes of army officers and soldiers of the units specialized in monitoring and tracking qualify as experiencing the humanitarian realities on the ground, even if they usually come from a top-down perspective, but what is published in the end requires the absence of opportunities for humanization, the obliteration of war crimes, and the demonstration of the alleged field capability.
There is a wealth of graphic material that the occupation army insists on withholding from the public. Because it does not serve its propaganda narrative, and what reinforces this conclusion are the increasing scenes that the Palestinian resistance is able to extract from the memory of the occupation marches after they were shot down, or from the helmet cameras of the occupation soldiers after they were seized.
The carefully selected propaganda clips published by the occupying army represent very scarce material from the abundance of high-quality photographic documentation that it actually possesses. The eyes of the occupation are open to monitoring and photographing the Gaza Strip, and in the archives of memory stored enough to drag the leaders of the occupation, its officers and soldiers to the war crimes courts, in addition to what shows the field achievements achieved by the Palestinian resistance.
It is a realistic assessment to conclude that the occupation possesses high-resolution photographic documentation of many of its heavy losses, including scenes that it refuses to show of the effect of the “Yassin 105” missile on “Merkava” tanks and “Tiger” tankers, for example, or video clips showing mortar shells raining down on its vehicles and the detonation of minefields. And houses booby-trapped with his soldiers, or army vehicles and body parts of soldiers being dragged from the field, and most likely an abundance of other things.
Scenes from the memory of the marches
Memory dumps of marches captured by the Palestinian resistance allowed us to obtain exceptional views of the behavior of committing atrocities, and it became clear how the occupation army tracks the defenseless civilian victims it kills in open areas with sniper bullets or aerial bombardment.
Scenes broadcast by Al Jazeera on March 10, 2024 showed occupation soldiers sniping a Palestinian boy in the vicinity of the “Al Fakhoura” school in the Jabalia camp, northern Gaza Strip. These scenes were obtained from the memory of an Israeli drone captured by the resistance in December 2023.
The scenes revealed how the drone filmed the defenseless boy covered in his blood after being snipped by the occupation soldiers, and how the drone operators in the control room affiliated with the occupation army deliberately photographed him from close-up and surveyed the area surrounding him. This scene reveals the brutality of the Israeli sniper against a defenseless boy, and the deliberate leaving him to bleed without giving him the opportunity to provide him with aid, and the army closely following this crime, and it must be just a sample of the traditions of field practice in the war of extermination.
This aerial experiment was renewed on March 21, 2024, when Al Jazeera showed exclusive scenes showing an occupation army drone targeting four unarmed Palestinian civilians, in the Al-Sikka area, located in the city of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. The scenes were captured from an Israeli march captured by Palestinian resistance at the beginning of February. The scenes reveal how the march pursued the four young men who were moving unarmed in an open area, then targeted them successively with several missiles that turned them into pieces in a series of air strikes.
The scenes in the Al-Sikka area provided an opportunity to experience some of the ongoing genocide traditions. The premeditated killing targeted these young men who did not pose any threat to the occupation army as they stumbled along a road that the army had bulldozed in search of the remains of their homes that were destroyed by the invasion. It was shown for the first time, through high-quality color aerial photography, how the army pursues unarmed civilians, and how it decides to brutalize them through a technical intermediary controlled by its operators in the command rooms.
These are small snippets of the abundance of brutality hidden in the photographic memory containers kept by the occupation army, and the scant scenes that leak from them after the marches are seized are enough to cause a shocking impact that will stir up normal human feelings. The four young men were seen in the clear, colorful scenes, becoming dismembered pieces one after the other, with no explanation for this brutal killing other than the will to exterminate, which does not see the Palestinian as having a right to life.
Views of soldiers' helmets
The difference is between the memory of the drones and the memory of the cameras installed on the helmets of the soldiers. The second is characterized by the vertical perspective in photography, and the direct approach to the details of the field.
Transcript footage from a helmet-mounted camera gave an occupation soldier a very realistic experience of some brutal killing missions. Al Jazeera broadcast the scenes on March 8, 2024, in which details emerged of a horrific incident that took place four months before that date.
The clip showed the heavily armed soldiers storming a house west of Gaza City, where they found a 73-year-old Palestinian man suffering from a comprehensive hearing and speech disability. One of them killed him with four bullets, even though the victim did not pose any danger to anyone, and he waved his hands to show that he was defenseless and unable to speak. . The soldier bragged in the presence of his colleagues about the atrocity he had just committed, and received overwhelming praise and apparent flattery from them. Then the sight of the elderly man lying on the ground next to the bed did not stop them when they went up to his bedroom, in which he was killed without mercy, while the helmet cameras kept pace with what they were doing, observing, and talking about.
It later became clear that the murdered elderly man was Atta Ibrahim al-Muqayed, a resident of the Beach Camp. He was unmarried and had no news of his family. It appears that after the camp was destroyed, he took shelter in the empty house in Gaza that became the scene of the graphic crime committed on November 6, 2023. It will remain. The head of the elderly Gazan Atta, dangling over a weak, blood-stained body, bears witness to the ugliness of the genocidal war targeting the Palestinian people at the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century.
These scenes, captured by the military helmet camera, gave an exceptional view of the prevailing culture of killing in the field, and revealed the spread of brutal fever within the ranks of the occupation army to the point of apparent ovation for killing an elderly deaf and mute Palestinian while he was in the bedroom, despite him waving his hands to express that he had special needs.
The spoken expressions and visual body language as the soldiers talked about this crime gave the impression of real-life diaries in an extermination army, such as a soldier saying to his comrade: “You killed him? Excellent!” With many gestures in support of the heinous act. However, the soldiers' preferred option was to bombard them with heavy weapons to save them the trouble of moving around the building, but "the service of blowing up the place and everyone in it" was not available to them at that moment, as stated in the audio-video documented dialogue.
This horrific case, despite its horror, remains just one sample of the brutal killings committed excessively by the occupation soldiers during the war of extermination. It is likely that the soldiers’ helmets contain a photographic memory documenting the mass murders they committed in many residential apartments against women, children, and the elderly, according to repeated testimonies.
The occupation army is keen to keep these scenes, and many others like them, hidden from circulation, and may even destroy some of them according to the traditions of professional perpetrators with proof of the killing they commit.
The occupation army remains the same army when it commits atrocities far from the Gaza Strip scene, where shocking scenes are documented by Palestinian cameras in the West Bank, using mobile phones from inside a car at a military checkpoint or through the window of a house that monitors soldiers’ incursions.
Surveillance cameras, whose presence the occupation army does not notice, provide photographic documentation of heinous acts, such as what was observed in one of the streets of Jenin camp on November 29, 2023. Video clips and surveillance cameras in the camp showed the moments of the execution of the two children, Adam Samer Al-Ghoul (8 years old) and Basil, by the occupation soldiers. Suleiman Abu Al-Wafa (15 years old) was brutally shot, leaving them to bleed to death, and targeting anyone who tried to help them. In the clips, one of the two children was seen falling after being hit by an Israeli bullet in the head while standing in front of his house on Al-Basateen Street, and another child was finished off by Israeli bullets. The distinction of the incident over others remains in the fact that it was filmed, but it remains the tip of the iceberg of ongoing war crimes in the West Bank.
Dehumanization of victims
Occupation propaganda cannot promote visual evidence that overflows the memory vessels stored in reconnaissance, monitoring, tracking and targeting headquarters. It is clear that those sitting in those headquarters do not give any consideration to the humanity of the victims who are falling around the clock, with a monthly toll exceeding twenty thousand martyrs and wounded, according to the rate observed in half a year.
There is no chance for a heartbeat or awakening of conscience in the control rooms. Humanity was stripped from the Palestinian people to begin with, and the brutal extermination campaign was classified by the occupation leaders as a “fateful war and a second war of independence.” That is, it is a second Nakba for the Palestinian people, or in the words of veteran Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, “This is the Nakba of Gaza 2023” in his interview with the Hebrew Channel 12 on November 11. It was said in the speeches of war leaders: “It is either us or them,” which implied that “exterminating them is necessary for our survival.”
What tempts to further numb consciences is that brutality is practiced through a technical medium, as those sitting in the control rooms commit genocide remotely and slaughter people of all ages without having to carry knives to cut off heads or cleavers to split skulls, and they are not even forced to wear a jacket and gloves while cutting people; Because the bloody shrapnel will stay away from them. The technical medium they use interferes in enabling the illusion in their minds and consciences that they are not savages, it is the machine that kills, as if they were merely computer systems experts who sit in front of screens and then go out for coffee breaks.
However, brutality in the occupation army has reached a level that exceeds this level, and a general culture has become impossible within its ranks, according to concerted indicators. Soldiers also commit atrocities directly on the ground, as in the tragedy of the elderly man, Atta, and their leaders have a huge flood of horrific scenes about what officers and soldiers commit in the field, but they prohibit Pass it on to the public and circulate it in the media.
Graphic sadism
Occupation propaganda propagates, directly or indirectly, colorful scenes from the field, some of which show soldiers in multiple instances barricading themselves in a place, shooting, or booby-trapping facilities and tunnels. The Palestinian is absent from these scenes, in which the soldiers often appear in a contrived representation that raises serious doubts about the credibility of the depicted incidents of the clash.
In other clips, promoted by occupation propaganda, Palestinians were shown - in queues or rows - stripped of most of their clothes, blindfolded and handcuffed, and in positions degrading to human dignity.
These woven scenes involved a clear fabrication. Occupation propaganda usually claims that they are Palestinian resistance fighters who surrendered to the army. Then, upon examining the faces, it is confirmed that they are unarmed Palestinian civilians, some of whom are elderly and unfit for the field, and whose names and deeds are known in the local community. Under threat, the soldiers forced an elderly man to come forward to hand over a weapon, which they forced him to carry while he was naked. Thus, the scene appeared in two incompatible versions!
These scenes sparked outrage among followers around the world, and visual designs spread on social media sites. To denounce these sadistic scenes, demonstrators simulated this behavior in the squares, as happened once in front of the American embassy in the Irish capital, Dublin. With the aim of exposing the contemptuous behavior practiced by the occupying army and to express solidarity with these defenseless Palestinians.
It can be assumed that these scenes in particular were not intended for global consumption, but they reached the horizons on their own at a time when the scope of the “target group” could not be controlled, thus causing additional damage to the image of the occupation and the disgraced reputation of its army abroad.
It is clear that the army’s propaganda tried, through these scenes, to further raise awareness that targets the morale of the Palestinian people by fabricating, photographing and promoting humiliating situations against Palestinian men, in cowardly bullying of defenseless civilians seeking to insult their human dignity, as well as strengthening the morale of the occupation community, which saw its army soldiers as they They are dragged in a dazed and broken state from inside the barracks and the tanks on October 7, 2023, by Palestinian resistance fighters with their heads held high.
There are other manifestations of graphic sadism, represented by individual, shameful clips in which occupation soldiers leave the field and are broadcast on social media platforms. The impression is created that some of these clips are sponsored or welcomed by the army, or come under direct or indirect direction from it, or that it overlooks them for propaganda and practical purposes, while some of them deviate from the path set for the soldiers or conflict with the command’s instructions. Because it inflicts huge propaganda losses and moral damage on the Occupation Square, to the point that some of the scenes filmed by soldiers showed cases of panic, shock, and injuries among them.
Online platforms are full of video clips that depict situations of releasing field suppression, the frustrations of the reality of combat, and the behavior of compensating for feelings of dismay and defeat that permeate the occupation army. Many soldiers posted frivolous scenes from inside the homes of Palestinian citizens after they were terrorized, displaced, and killed. They appeared in scenes of fun or emptied the contents of closets to show women's underwear and took "masculine" pictures that humiliated women.
Pictures and clips were also released showing soldiers deliberately destroying food supplies, while famine was escalating among the Palestinians around them. Soldiers appeared in several representative clips, one of which mocked the conditions of destroyed homes by opening a door in a wall that was the only thing left of one of the homes. Soldiers played the role of the teacher and students in a classroom inside a school destroyed by the occupation army, while another soldier appeared in a store selling stationery and children’s toys. He plays the role of the salesman and begins destroying everything in hysterical, reckless behavior. These and other scenes were added to clips of fun by bombing and destroying homes, and these scenes were given away via social networking sites to spouses and children on social occasions.
Clips on the humanization of genocide and the feminization of the army
Because the occupation army is waging its brutal campaign in the era of images, videos, mobile devices, and social networking sites, its propaganda system stimulates soldiers to promote ridiculous scenes that serve the purpose of humanizing the army and alleviating the burden of the war of genocide on the public around the world. This persistent endeavor is served by an abundance of clips that depict sarcastic situations or are intended to appear funny, without this meaning that they are released on their own initiative and under the guidance of army propaganda.
It is the occupation army's habit to employ girls in its misleading propaganda, taking advantage of this army's peculiarity in the widespread and compulsory conscription of women in comparison to other armies in the world. If the sight of army soldiers is part of the typical “tourist image” for visitors to occupied Palestine, as they are seen in large numbers in cities, towns, and at crossroads; The female soldier, with her olive uniform and portable weapon, remained an ideal model for this promotional image.
The army's propaganda materials were keen to highlight female recruits with certain formal specifications in its posters, clips, films, and direct and indirect promotional materials. With the rise of the role of social networking sites, it became common for female soldiers to engage in a new style of self-publishing, circulating pictures and clips and broadcasting them over the network. Some of them caused shameful scandals from inside the barracks, or some of them expressed sadistic behavior towards Palestinian citizens at some checkpoints.
The role of clips of female soldiers became prominent during the war of genocide, in which female soldiers appear in military uniforms and weapons intended to commit atrocities while performing contrived roles as if they were on a leisure trip or a youth camping trip. These clips serve not only to humanize the military; But also to feminize his image. Those who appear in the clips belong to the traditions of the “Instagram” and “Tik Tok” generation, and they embody cute movements and globalized dances, or they act according to the consumer style of modern societies, including being careful to scrutinize the specifications of the meal, such as celebrating a quick meal order of burger sandwiches, and sipping refreshments. Without leaving the military uniform and the killing machine, of course.
These are planned or spontaneous visual interventions on the part of the occupation army and its soldiers involved in the horrific crimes of the era, and the propaganda efforts of this army are indispensable for the efforts of graphic fabrication as it fights its brutal war that has entered history as a graphic genocide around the clock, and in its shadow, image clashes with image, scene with scene, and falsification. With a reality that cannot be erased forever.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.