Israel is lying about the number of its casualties in Gaza, with Jon Elmer

how how exact like what are the mechanisms uh that Israel is using here you know in their attempt to substitute an image of victory for the Israeli Army I I know that Abdul jaad touched on it a little bit but but what are your thoughts on that yeah well the I mean this it's part of a multi-pronged strategy and one of the other elements of that strategy has been to um to in to exaggerate their successes um and to down downgrade um or or completely censor their failures and so we've been following on this show for two months about the situation about Israeli casualties and we've been saying we've been careful about it because we don't want to speculate um but we've been saying carefully that this the the videos that we've been watching clearly don't match to the injury reports um and I've been doing that since the beginning of this war attempting to figure out which Kasam Field Report matches to which Israeli Soldier uh was killed and that was impossible and Israel did that as part of a campaign um to hide their information and they're able to do that because they have a military sensor and so every uh story published in Israel is put through the IDF sensor so it doesn't get published until the IDF says it's okay and the IDF didn't say it was okay and so for the first two months of the war um nobody in Israel talked about that uh probably in part because it was censored if you did talk about it but this past week we've seen uh reporting by haret uh Israel's leading liberal um daily where it where you could tell by the way that they're reporting that they were pushing the idf's hand um to start properly reporting casualties for people who haven't followed along the IDF has not released any tallies they don't have any they never say 75 soldiers have been been killed in the ground invasion they never say a number of injured um injured and deaths combined as casualties so they've been systematically covering up uh those numbers but because they're covering it up we haven't we weren't able to see um how that process was working but now we do because this week carets um apparently pushed um the IDF um to to release this uh the casualty information and in the process of releasing this casualty information haret wrote this story um that talked about how in every single Hospital in Israel there's a 247 IDF monitoring of the hospital Communications to ensure that no information was released and this goes not just for numbers of injured but anything that was considered to be suggestive of that so for example they weren't reporting how many helicopters landed on their roof um because that kind of information would be suggestive of the type of injuries and the number of injuries that are coming so before this week we had no information on that on yam Kapur which is an annual tradition in Israel um the defense Ministry celebrates everyone who's died in wars um defending Israel and they put out the number back at the beginning that was like late November they put the number out at 2,000 people 2,000 soldiers had been injured um since October 7th and so harat's um in before that n at that number was not acknowledged by the IDF the spokesperson was not giving that as a number and we know that um the number that they were uh of of injured just from October 7th because a lot of people have been trying to find out what the casualty rate is for the ground war because Israel has covered up the ground War casualty rate um and so haret pushed this and in in doing so they revealed a number of things that have been going on behind the scenes that we didn't hear about namely that doctors in these hospitals in Israel were starting to push back against this censorship because they had very stringent restrictions on what they were allowed to say um and these doctors were upset about it um because they believed that their Heroes that the soldiers are heroes that they're Heroes for healing the soldiers and they wanted to be part of this kind of national um discussion about um this war that everybody's um involved with in Israel right 350,000 troops called up um the hospitals play a significant part in this they believe and they want to tell the story of these injured soldiers and until what are we 14 December uh until 12 December from a war that started in October they systematically covered up those numbers and even still the number that they released um that we saw just from that headline they released a number around 1,500 that have been that have been injured since October 7th so that includes October 7th um but the second half of that headline you see there but Hospital data is much higher so in the push that haritz was doing to get the IDF to release the information harats went around to each Hospital in Israel and each Hospital categorizes Soldier uh injuries that's part of the process that they've done for the state of Israel since the beginning this is all new for this war previously there was tallies I mean normally in any wire story that that tally of the fatalities is something that would be included in every um in every wire story right at the bottom this many pales Ians have been killed this many Israelis have been killed um but that had not happened um until this week and so haret um got the data from the hospitals um themselves and if you see the numbers just from those hospitals um ashalon alone which is the closest hospital to the Gaza Strip according to haret this is as of last week's data according to haritz ashalon alone has 1949 casualties so 500 more than the IDF says total because now the IDF is acknowledging a number but even that number that they're reporting is a fraction of the number that the hospital data shows um at each of these hospitals let me give you a couple more examples Beva which is the second closest hospital it's a thousand itself so just those two hospitals right there are double the number that the IDF is claiming and then there's those aren't you know then there's the Tel Aviv Hospital hospitals where people who are seriously injured go to um and those numbers are 700 so just from those three examples and then there's dozens of hospitals all over Israel that have casualties in them as well so we see on the one hand um you know using sexual violence uh as a tool to to Rob masculinity on the one hand to paint a picture of Victory and then on the other hand you're hiding your stories of what's happening to your soldiers and that's that has been percolating um just under the surface in Israel um I was listening to the IDF spokesperson doing a Twitter space the other day and somebody phoned into the Twitter space and said to him straight up why are you covering up he said his his uh he was the uncle of a a soldier who fought a captain who fought um and and he didn't understand why Israel wasn't telling the truth about their casualties um with the idea being that you're not telling stories of Heroes you're not creating an image of Victory you're not creating something that we can take back to our people that describes a sacrifice that was made um for this devastating defeat that happened on October 7th that's put the their a lot of core beliefs of their country into question um and people some people in Israel believed that that should be part of the fight back to what happened on October 7th that you celebrate your Heroes so this is the first week of the war um now 7 weeks in that this has happened and you can see it happening in a structural way um the chief of staff halevi he went to the rehab hospital yesterday and did a photo op with injured soldiers nobody has talked about injured soldiers in the IDF for this whole War um and he went and did um this campaign we'll probably talk about it more later in the show when we talk about Shaya but um as Abdul jaad said that Golani um unit that got hit in Shaya the other day they came out and described in detail what happened to their Fighters that's a first time that hasn't happened and so what we've seen and we talked about it a couple shows ago it does seem though that Israel came out of the pause out of the fighting pause and got basically feedback from their focus groups on what has to be done to build an image of victory that allows you to withdraw from this war um with some semblance of at least operational legitimacy because we know they've lost moral legitimacy um and so they they want to have some kind of symbol of Victory and for the Israelis because they don't have the operational or moral uh legitimacy to fall back on their principal War fighting strategy is to stay alive um and we've seen that in every in part of the the brutality of the massacres in the Gaza Strip is cowardice it's cowardice of their soldiers who don't want to go and risk themselves um and so Israel believes that the um and you can see it by this whole story that they believe operational success is synonymous with low casualties which is um you know completely separate from the concept of uh defeating a gorilla group that's embedded under the ground with tens of thousands of Fighters who you are very clearly not going to fight under the ground um and so we we're seeing it and we see what the Mass arrests we see it with the hiding the casualties and we've seen it even with their propaganda videos um we we mock their videos and we will again um later in the show but their videos have improved significantly over the last week um we saw our First Palestinian in a video seven weeks into the war um and so they they're and they're telling these stories um because they never had a video to send to their people um like The Times of Israel reporter um who just repeats um IDF uh numbers and stats he he said this is the most badass video that Israel has published through the war so it's it's very obvious that they're attempting um to ahead of time sort of deal with some of the questions uh that we've asked on this show the whole time um and according ording to this haritz report even they're admitting to their casualties uh they're admitting to like 15% of the casualties which I think matches the videos and we're going to watch more jelly beans later in the show and I think you'll see that um it's simply impossible that what was happening on the ground matched Israel um releasing the way that they released their casualties was individually one name at a time they never said eight in this event 10 in this event five in this event they didn't tell us where it happened all that stuff is changing a little bit they're starting to try to to turn their Heroes uh their soldiers into Heroes um emasculate the Palestinians and throw them in trucks so that people can meme them um and then they send out these on their uh WhatsApp groups and social media channels um that act almost more than news right the people watch these social media channels especially since October 7th the social media channels are far more valuable for information for Israelis um which was the case on October 7th than any news media the media is weeks behind what's going on on social and that's that's true I think also in the west with the mainstream media that uh most of us have access to uh we're going to talk about another story in a bit that they're not cover it all that is even now the Israeli media is catching up with but John I guess a question I have for you is so now I I've also seen there's actually at least two videos in which Palestinians who were almost certainly Fighters appear aside from the videos of the professors and journalists and just heless uh men that they abducted from un shelters and then uh subjected to this humiliating treatment for these photo ops but my question for you John is who do you think these videos are aimed at because we do know that of course on the one hand we always have to be cautious in saying social media doesn't Define the world there is a world outside of social media but at the same time clearly social media has a huge impact on perception particularly when you look at younger demographics in the United States and around the world and we see it's in the younger demographics where the support for Palestinians and the opposition to Israel is is so high far far far huge majority support for Palestinians so social media is important now from what I've seen and then again this is is just my perspective but I look at a lot of things obviously these videos of the soall surrenders the fake Surrender videos that Israel has been producing are getting no traction whatsoever outside of the narrow demographic of people who already support Israel whereas the videos that we're going to talk about and that we have been talking about over the last few months two months from the Palestinian resistance seem to get it seem to be gaining more and more traction Beyond just people who already know about or support Palestinians is that you do you share that perception or what what what's your view of it I'd love to hear from Abu about this as well yeah I think straight up that people watch those videos of the Palestinians being Fearless uh defending their communities and people called them Heroes and Israel didn't have anything to counter that with um all they I mean I see it in our comments that you know we don't have any proof that uh these armored vehicles are being pierced by these uh Yasin or what we we do have a lot of evidence that they're being um pierced but even just to be able to counter that kind of propaganda with your own Heroes tell the stories about your own fighters um because October 7th is going to be studied in your country for the next well however many uh years your country lasts um people are going to be talking about that so you want to be crafting uh you want some heroes in this story um beyond the helicopter pilots who shot at uh you know the kids on their way back to Gaza or what what have you um Israel needed to show something Beyond just their you know their civilians wearing military uniforms being their spokesperson so I I think that there was pressure in their focus groups to make Heroes somebody is there zero Heroes like um when you watching the Palestinian videos and you can clearly see on social media you can see again for the Palestinian a lot of people that support the Palestinians think those videos are amazing but you can tell that a lot of people that are kind of uh that that aren't wouldn't say I'm a supporter uh you know before October 7th are watching these videos and just saying like my God these These are unbelievable what we're witnessing from a helmet cam you know whatever the opposite of staged is is what those Palestinian videos are and I think that their focus groups would have shown them that that that that Kasam is winning the media War over this state that essentially crafted itself as the like perfect media um you know activist that you know they they set up these whole um Departments of foreign hasbara departments that are just dedicated to attacking college campuses um because they know they're losing um you know these whole demographics of people that I think their focus groups told them like humiliate some Palestinians and show some Heroes because it looks to us like you're just killing civilians which is what it looks like to the whole world Abdul jaad I want to know your thoughts on on this like propaganda war and and how you're how you're seeing this all play out I mean it's uh it's it's very simple I think when it comes to the Palestinians because it's you know you have truth on your side you don't have to engage in a lot of curation of your story no you don't have to engage in a lot of um censorship or editing I mean it doesn't doesn't mean that there's no like conscious sometimes propaganda here or there but what it means is that you know you can you you you can you can present yourself and frame yourself authentically and that also comes across with Alam videos and other military groups videos where you see um these Fighters um you know uh wearing slippers um engaging in armed combat with armored vehicles that each cost you know million of dollars um using simple means and much of these means are manufactured within Gaza itself uh through the poers of uh the engineering uh minds of the the resistance that itself to create whatever tools um you know that can be used in the fighting against one of the most advanced militaries so I think that you know you have you're the underdog you're you're you're you're heroic in terms of your your belief and your your own and what you're doing and and why you're fighting and what is for me quite bizarre about Israeli propaganda is that it comes in this moment um on October 7th where you Israelis feel a lot of injury to their National project a moral injury as well that befallen on them and you have all all the mechanisms of creating let's say an authentic heroic story of triumph over um you know uh Palestinian resistance Etc but despite that you're still very very sensitive to the shock that could happen within Israeli Society for um any casualty rate that that Israeli Society will not tolerate um and and this is one of the the paradoxes of how Israel is dealing with its propaganda on the one hand it cannot really reach and touch the Palestinian Fighters except through air power and in very few cases we did we see very close combat in these in in these videos and I think John you know will probably show us uh later on that only a couple of these videos perhaps show some sort of actual fighting between Hamas Fighters or palestin resistance Fighters and Israeli troops you know in close combat and in in in many of these in instances you also see kind of um you know uh when they're they're clashing we don't necessarily see Israelis triumphing over the time no um you know it's it's it's one of these elements where I think Israel is uh because it's too curated because it's too edited because it thinks over its propaganda too much it ends up producing one of the worst uh information Wars that we have seen since a while I mean it does it does in a way help it um on on some grounds maybe it protects you know it the the unity within its own Society maybe that's what's important about you know expanding the temporal Horizon of the war and that's their priority maybe that's that's their thinking but at least in terms of uh information Warfare in terms of the media war in terms of PR in terms of uh its ability to attract supporters in terms of its ability to explain what it's doing I think it's failing on all fronts and not only that it's losing all more grounds as you guys have covered for the past two months or so and at the same time um you know providing a fertile ground for Palestinians to speak their stories for now more ears that are willing to listen thanks for watching this video please subscribe to our YouTube channel hit like leave a comment these engagements help us with the YouTube algorithm and 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