The real story is how top US and Israeli officials spread fake rape claims to provide cover for genocide, demonise all Palestinians, convince Israeli society that the brutal war is justified, and bash the UN.
Atrocities against babies that the head of the Israeli army’s national rescue unit alleged were committed by Hamas fighters when they attacked an Israeli kibbutz on October 7 were in fact lurid tales of the officer’s own invention, intended to provide a pretext for genocide in the Gaza Strip, and to protect the massacre’s actual perpetrators: Israel’s own soldiers, acting on the orders of a top general.
Long after Landau’s emotional recollections were replayed, repeated, cited, and quoted in the global media, a problem emerged: No one could find any evidence that the two massacres ever took place — in Be’eri or elsewhere.
Yossi Landau, who spread misinformation that has fueled and justified Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza, is not who he portrayed himself to be. Neither is his organization.
The UN report on sexual violence on October 7 has found no evidence of systematic rape by Hamas or any other Palestinian group, despite widespread media reporting to the contrary. But there are deeper problems with the report’s credibility.