In October 2023, a photograph allegedly showing the Israeli neo-Nazi battalion “Tal Sukhar” went viral on the Internet. We checked whether this photo is real.
The photo being circulated shows more than a dozen men in military uniform, some of whom are holding the Israeli national flag and a flag with symbols of Nazi Germany. It is reported that the picture shows Tal Sukhar, a neo-Nazi battalion of the Israeli army.
The photo went viral on social networks. So, on VKontakte it was posted by the public “There is strength in truth"(327,000 subscribers; the post was deleted, but the photo was saved in the album) and "What's up with the grunts? (WHAT)”(the post has more than 1,200 likes with 25,000 views), where the photo was commented as follows: “There’s nothing to add here! Just one question: did our people do the right thing when they liberated Auschwitz?” On Telegram, a photograph of alleged Israeli neo-Nazis was published, for example, by the channels “Bottle"(147,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) and "Alexander Semchenko"(91,000), where the author wrote: "A beautiful photograph and very telling." Similar entries are found in social networks X (former Twitter), V LiveJournal and on others websites.
If you carefully study the viral photo, then you can notice that, unlike the Israeli flag, the Nazi flag does not seem to be held by any of the depicted men. If you conduct a reverse image search (“Verified”, use the service TinEye), you can find an almost identical photograph that does not depict Nazi symbols.
A photo without the flag of Nazi Germany was published in the summer of 2023 on the websites of the largest Israeli media, including The Times Of Israel, Newsru.co.il And TV7 Israel News. At the same time, it is clarified on all resources that the photo was provided by the press service of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). There is a post on the Facebook* account of the Israeli Armed Forces with a photograph of interest to us. appeared June 5. "These are 12 patrol fighters [of the brigade's reconnaissance battalion]"Golani"who will make history and train in Morocco! Yesterday, the first-ever IDF delegation went to the international exercise "African Lion", which is taking place on Moroccan soil and where approximately 8,000 soldiers from 18 countries took part. We are confident that you will represent us with respect," the publication said. Accordingly, the original image shows the flags of Israel and divisions, part of the Golani brigade.
By using TinEye "Checked" found and original image of the Nazi flag - the photo was taken back in 2020 in Australia. Then it was hung up by a resident of a small town in Victoria, which caused public outrage. It is noteworthy that to create the fake, its author had to mirror the original photograph published by ABC.
In most of the published publications, the fake photo is not an independent photo, but a screenshot of a tweet dated October 7, 2023 from the user localhost@root (@hy_zrada), in whose profile description indicatedthat he is from Ukraine.
Verified reviewed the posts on this account and found several comments about the viral image. So, on October 8, other users wrote to localhost@root that he posted a fabricated photo and that it was easy to find out using the Google Lens service. To this the author replied: “Where were you with your Google Lens when neo-Nazi Israeli forces bombed Palestine with American biolabs for eight years?” When it was pointed out to him that he probably meant Donetsk, localhost@root wrote: “Ah yes, the ancient people of Drumnbas, the predecessor of Palestine.” Later, in a separate tweet, the blogger noted, which “screams because the fools began to fight with Photoshop.” However, localhost@root's true motives are probably revealed in another replay: “You just saw what happens every time the Russians accuse the Ukrainians of something. Stupid fakes are easy to debunk, but brainless people still believe it. Glad the tweet went viral."
Cover photo: social networks
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