When the Hamas fighters carried the coffins containing the remains of the Pipas family- who took hostages in Israel on October 7- the shots showed the ceremony, crossing the airport runway and put the coffins on wooden platforms to be received by the Red Cross staff.
The Israeli and Western media described the event as “respected.” The New York Times considered a “distorted delivery”, while CBS described it as a “horrific scene” that Hamas organized its show.
On the other hand, when Israel published pictures of the released Palestinians, who are forced to wear shirts carrying a big blue star on the back, along with a slogan saying: “We will not forgive, we will not forget,” the media ignored this story and the threats represented by those shirts.
According to+AJ, the freed prisoners and their families burned the shirts as soon as they were released “as a protest against ill -treatment and systematic torture that the Palestinians face under Israeli families.”
Upon a closer look at the actual shots of how Hamas implement the burial ceremony of the Pepas family, it is clear that it was official and majestic. The Palestinians appear silently, while the event takes place.
In Podcast an electronic uprising, John Elmer (in the 57:17 minute) explained through the black coffin display slice covered with curtain before the fighters carried it in a respectable arrangement to the international Red Cross vehicle. He pointed out that the Israelis were able to distort the event; Because they assumed that the American public will not be aware of the nature of the actual ceremonies. Indeed, American media coverage was limited to short selected shots showing the event from very far corners.
The two children, Ariel and Kevir Pipas, were among the Israeli hostages who were killed in Gaza with their mother during the first weeks of the Israeli aggression on the Strip.
Although Israel claims, without evidence, that Hamas killed them “with its bare hands”, it is very likely that they died as a result of the Israeli bombing, as happened with many women and children who were killed in the same area during that period.
According to the Grazon report, Hamas announced the killing of Sherry and Ariel and Kevir Pepas after being targeted in an Israeli air strike in November 2023.
On December 3, Yardin Pepas appeared in a video of families, confirming the killing of his wife and children with an Israeli raid, begging his government to negotiate for his release so that he could buried them properly.
John Elmer stressed that comparing the funeral of the Pepas family should be with what is happening daily in Gaza, where the bodies of children, women and men are left in the open, or are buried under the ruins of the Israeli bombing, which are real, horrific crimes.
Israel needed more than just statements about “lack of respect” and “horrific scenes” to overcome the shock caused by the horrific images of the bodies of the Palestinians who were released from Israeli prisons suffering from hunger and torture.
Middle East Eye (February 25, 2024) presented a report on Muhammad Abu Tawil, whose body carries the effects of chemical burns and beating. Most of the Palestinian detainees were starving, and one of them explained that he had to bear the amputation of his leg while he was in Israeli families.
Pictures of some prisoners seemed to be like pictures of Nazi detention camps, while others were so bad that they were immediately taken to the hospital after their release. But the American media used this comparison only when referring to the Israeli hostages who lost weight during their detention in Gaza; Because of the deliberate Israeli siege of food aid.
To overcome the devastating influence of the images documenting the torture of Palestinian prisoners, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a propaganda video that includes a picture created with the artificial intelligence of a red-head- the fact that Pepas’s children were so- with an audio comment claiming that Hamas had killed the children, adding: “From this day onwards, every red -headed child will remind us that Hamas killed them, and will do it again unless it was eliminated.”
Journalist Kaitlin Johnston also indicated, the aggressive assumption of the idea that Pepas’s children were “red poetry” is part of a disgusting warplane campaign targeting white Westerners.
Israeli pathologist Shane Cogel- who had previously promoted false propaganda about “Children of Conflict Children” on October 7, which was adopted by the American media- helped marketing this new novel.
In Israel and the Western world, it was extensively promoted to the fact that these children were “red hair with”. A prominent landmarks such as the Empire State building in New York, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin in orange color to commemorate their memory, and orange balloons were launched in Israel and the West in honor of them.
But the Pepas family has become a major problem for Israeli propaganda directors when they demanded the government to stop the exploitation of the killing of their family for political purposes, and they demanded that any propaganda related to their deaths.
Since his release on February 2, Yardin Pepas has not confirmed the comments he made during his capture, but rather sent an open letter to senior Israeli officials expressing his rejection of the government’s narrative.
His message publicly contradicted the statements of Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli army, who claimed that “Erdin looked into my eyes and asked that the whole world know the way his children were killed.”
Benjamin Netanyahu also issued a video statement in English, carrying a magnifying picture of children and referring to it during his speech. Kaitlin Johnston explained that Netanyahu wanted Westerners to see that these children were not the type that we were told to be indifferent to their death, as happened with thousands of children who were slaughtered in Gaza. He wanted to explain to us that they were “eggs of skin”.
During his speech to the United Nations Security Council on February 26, Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, said: “A minute of silence for both Pepas children will be appropriate, as well as a minute of silence for both the 18,000 Palestinian children who were killed in the Israeli destruction of Gaza.” He added that if this had been implemented, these minutes would have continued for more than 300 hours.
At a time when Israel and its supporters were promoting strongly for this novel, it was not a coincidence that Israel was about to end the ceasefire and resume its siege on humanitarian aid to Gaza.
As Monduiz stated, the death of the Pepas family has turned into a “other piece of hideous propaganda” that Israel uses again “to justify the genocide in Gaza.”
In July, a study published by The Lancet warned that the number of Palestinian dead could reach 186,000, but for Israel, it was not enough.
At this stage, the most recent fabrication of Israel is no longer deceiving anyone, and it has become just a “desperate theater” that reflects the rejection of public opinion more than it convinces it.
Americans want a ceasefire, and support arms shipments to Israel, and for the first time in seven years, more Americans sympathize with the Palestinians more than ever.
The opinions in the article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al -Jazeera.
(Tagstotranslate) Politics (T) Israel (T) north of Gaza (T) Arabic (T) Palestine