Israeli military mired in '72 Virgins - Uncensored' scandal

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Israeli media
4 Feb 2024 10:54
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The Israeli military has now admitted to running a racist Telegram Channel.

A screengrab from the Israeli occupation forces run "72 Virgins - Uncensored", which shares racist anti-Palestinian content (Telegram)

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) admitted that its Operation Directorate's Influencing Department operated a war crime-celebrating Telegram channel, named "72 Virgins - Uncensored", after denying claims earlier in December 2023.

As reported by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the channel faced suspension following increased public awareness of the previously obscure group, which included around 7.6k subscribers, at the time of reporting on December 12, 2023.

However, the IOF denied the involvement of its Influencing Department in running the channel, a statement which it has now retracted, saying it had done so based on untruthful testimonies of the leaders of the Department. Members of the Department are thought to have started operating the channel on October 8, one day after "Israel" launched its aggression on the Gaza Strip, following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

The head of the Influencing Department is expected to resign from his position and retire after an investigation revealed that the channel was allegedly set up with no authorization.

Racist content, mutilation of bodies, and celebration of war crimes are some of the actions that the channel's operators boasted about. In "72 Virgins - Uncensored," subscribers were promised "exclusive content" from the Gaza Strip, filmed by Israeli occupation soldiers.

Operators encouraged followers to share the content so that "everyone will see that we (Israelis) are f***ing them (Palestinians)."

Some of the videos shared included occupation soldiers running over the body of a martyr multiple times, captioned: "An exclusive video for a good night, don't forget to share and pass on. Very good Gershon!!! run over it run over it!!!!"

Israeli soldiers were even seen dipping assault rifle bullets in pork fat to fire them at Palestinians. It is worth noting that pork is considered an unclean animal as food in both Judaism and Islam.

The channel run by the IOF has also propagated racial derogatory stereotypes to an engaged Israeli audience, in an attempt to dehumanize Palestinians, a tactic employed by Nazi officials against minorities during World War II, specifically when describing enemies as cockroaches or pigs.