1 year ago
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An old video showing Israelis celebrating the death of people in Gaza by singing songs is viral online as a recent video. BOOM found that the video is from 2014 when an inter-religious marriage in Israel faced protests from far-right group Lehava.
The video shows some people waving Israeli flags while singing about the death of children in Gaza. The translation of the song in the subtitles reads, "Gaza, Gaza, Gaza is a cemetery! There's no school in Gaza, because there are no children left in Gaza!"
At least 2,600 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis have been killed in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, which began over a week ago on October 7. Israel has issued a complete blockade of essential supplies to Gaza, and directed all civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate and head southward.
The video of the Israelis singing is viral online with the caption, "Israelis sing and dance a song about Gaza becoming a cementary for children. These people are going to love the #GazaGenocide."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
The post is also circulating on Facebook with similar captions.
Click here to view the post.
FACT CHECK
BOOM found that the clip is from 2014 and shows Lehava, a far-right group in Israel protesting the wedding of an Arab man and a Jewish woman who converted to Islam shortly before the ceremony.
We found that the viral tweet had a community note posted below it, a feature on X that allows users to add context to misleading posts shared on the platform. According to this note, the clip was taken from a 2015 documentary 'Disregarding Gaza'.
We then looked up the documentary 'Disregarding Gaza' that was shared on YouTube on March 16, 2015. The short documentary covered the absence of Gaza and Palestine's representation in Israeli media. The portion of the viral video began from the 3:36 mark.
Before the viral portion of the video begins, the anchor talks about how the crew was covering an inter-religious marriage in Israel that was facing protests from Lehava. Lehava is a far-right Jewish supremacist group that is known for objecting associations between Jews and Arabs.
The video's description mentioned how the documentary was shot during Operation Protective Edge.
Operation Protective Edge, also known as the 2014 Gaza War, began in July 2014 when Israel launched a military offensive into Gaza killing more than 2,000 Palestinians.
Taking a cue from these details, we ran a search for Lehava protesting any inter-religious weddings in Israel in 2014 and found several reports. According to this BBC report published on August 18, an Arab Muslim man, Mahmoud Mansour had sought a court order to stop the protests ahead of his wedding with Moner Malka, but had not been successful. Lehava was permitted to hold a demonstration at the wedding as long as they stayed 200 m away from the reception hall located in the suburb of Rishon Lezion in Tel Aviv.
A counter-demonstration was also held by left-wing groups who showed up at the venue to express their support for the couple's union.
According to Reuters, Lehava had denounced Malka, a Jewish-born woman who had converted to Islam ahead of the wedding. The group also chanted slogans such as "Death to the Arabs". The report also carried a picture of the couple.
The wedding saw wide coverage from local and international media as well. Speaking to SBS Dateline, Mansour said, "It wasn't fun, we were in the middle of the wedding and people wanted to ruin it."
Israeli news outlet Ynet also reported that four protestors were arrested at the wedding after they failed to follow police instructions.
Then Israeli President Reuven Rivlin also criticised the protests in a Facebook post, calling them "outrageous and alarming" and emphasising that "Not everyone has to rejoice in the joy of Mahmoud and Morel - but everyone has to respect them".
Click here to view the post.
BOOM then reached out to Disregarding Gaza's director, Tamar Glezerman, who confirmed via email that the portion of the documentary showing Lehava singing songs about the death of people in Gaza was from the same wedding. Glezerman further added, "As an Israeli, I would like to take this opportunity to ask people to be vigilant and thoughtful, in what they post and how they speak and to never forget to stand up against violence."
