Israel-haters and general fake news accounts have been spreading reports online that the IDF killed Israeli civilians during the events of October 7th.
The latest incarnation of this unfounded allegation has come from a Twitter account called Megatron, that has positioned itself as a “breaking news” account:
BREAKING:
— Megatron (@Megatron_ron) November 9, 2023
Footage has emerged of an Israeli helicopter killing many people at an October 7 concert in Israel.
The IDF basically fired on everyone fleeing that concert using helicopters.
Still unconfirmed. pic.twitter.com/cEWiEpUB4y
Note how they label this breaking news, but at the end admit it was unconfirmed. Talk about irresponsible. Yet the video has 1.6 million views at the time of this post, and has been shared by Israel-haters like QNN.
Megatron subsequently posted what it says was confirmation, in the form of this Ynet report:
A look at the report itself shows it does not confirm what he alleges: (Google translation follows).
Hamas deception of IDF helicopters and directing pilots on WhatsApp | Air Force on the 1st day
The first helicopters were actually launched from the north of the country, and arrived in the Gaza Strip about an hour after the fighting began. The terrorists were instructed not to run so that the air would think they were Israelis. The pilots shot over the sides of the fence, and also right inside the settlements. Pilots received information from the ground on cell phones. In 4 hours, about 300 targets were attacked | Black Sabbath events
The Air Force began summarizing the events of the surprise attack that started the war in Gaza, and it appears that the fog of battle accompanied not only the fighters on the ground, but also the air crews that were launched into the skies of the Western Negev in the first hours of Black Sabbath.
The first pair of combat helicopters that were on immediate alert for the Gaza Division arrived at Otef about an hour or more after the events began, around 8:00-7:30, from the Ramat David camp in the north. This is despite the fact that the mother squadrons of the Apache helicopters are in Camp Ramon, which is closer to the Gaza Strip. In Ramon they quickly realized that something unusual was developing and brought up, with the commander of the 190 squadron Lt. Col. A himself, a combat helicopter that arrived at Otef at 8:32.
After the pilots realized that there was tremendous difficulty in distinguishing within the occupied outposts and settlements who was a terrorist and who was a soldier or civilian, a decision was made that the first mission of the combat helicopters and the armed Zik drones was to stop the flow of terrorists and the murderous mob that poured into Israeli territory through the gaps in the fence. 28 combat helicopters fired over the course of a day The fighting all the ammunition in their stomachs, in rearming rounds. These are hundreds of 30 mm cannon shells (the effect of a spray grenade for each shell) as well as the Hellfire missiles. The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully select the targets.
The Hamas army, it turns out, deliberately made it difficult for the helicopter pilots and the operators of the UAVs: in the investigation it became clear that the invading forces were asked in the last briefings to walk slowly into the settlements and outposts or within them, and under no circumstances to run, in order to make the pilots think they were Israelis. This deception worked for a considerable time , until the Apache pilots realized that they had to skip all the restrictions. It was only around 9:00 a.m. that some of them began to spray the terrorists with the cannons on their own, without authorization from superiors.
For a start, the report describes how pilots were firing on terrorists streaming through the fence, since it was difficult to distinguish between terrorist and civilian in the invaded towns. So it shows how the IAF were super careful, the opposite of what this account claims. Furthermore, there is no mention of the concert goers whatsoever, nor any mention of civilians killed in the IAF attacks.
The Megatron account claims this part is incriminating:
The rate of fire against the thousands of terrorists was tremendous at first, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow down the attacks and carefully select the targets.
but all it reveals is how the IAF fired quickly on the terrorists streaming through the fence.
Moreso, the video this account has tweeted out in support of the allegation does not show what they claim.
For a start, it is not the same video that appears in the report they cite, which has the caption “Documentation of the air force attack on the strip at the beginning of the war.” Rather, they used this video, first posted October 9th, which shows something else entirely :
Israeli AH-64 Apache attack helicopters engage Hamas militants with 30mm chain gun fire and Hellfire missiles pic.twitter.com/mkgMAawY30
— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) October 9, 2023
Note also the IDF Spox logo on the video. It makes no sense the IDF would release video showing them firing on civilians.
In other words, everything about the tweet was false.
