At the beginning of 2024, a video circulated on Telegram channels in which an Israeli military man allegedly stated: his subordinates fired a tank at a house, and the dead were declared victims of Hamas. We have verified the accuracy of such publications.

On January 1–2, a 32-second video went viral in the Russian-language segment of Telegram, in which a man in a kippah and military uniform with a chevron in the form of the Israeli flag, standing against the backdrop of a destroyed and partially burned building, speaks in English to a person behind the scenes. The recording is accompanied by Arabic subtitles. In the video captions, bloggers claim: Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Colonel Golani Vach admits that on October 7 last year, tanks under his command fired at houses where Israeli civilians lived, and the deaths of these 15 people (including eight children) were subsequently passed off as Hamas atrocities. Similar publications appeared, in particular, in Telegram channels Colonelcassad (282,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), “Kirill Fedorov / War history weapons" (138,000) and "Palestine in Russian"(122,000). This video was also shared by users Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, LiveJournal and other social networks and blogging platforms.

https://youtu.be/nKl00UdmZMg?si=tyrIsMv6woOs-qmF

On the morning of October 7, 2023, the Hamas group began a massive shelling of Israel, while hundreds of militants entered the areas of the country bordering the Gaza Strip. According to published in December clarified According to Israeli authorities, 1,139 people were killed during the attack, and more than 240 were taken out to Gaza as hostages. Independent Israeli media keep their statistics: Haaretz newspaper by the end of December confirmed the death of 1,219 Israelis (including military personnel killed during the clashes that followed the attack), portal Newsru.co.il by January 10 - 1,398 people (the editors also take into account victims of Hezbollah shelling in the north of the country). By data Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, more than 23,000 people have been killed in the region since the IDF launched its response operation. It is impossible to independently confirm these statistics.

The hero of the viral video is indeed IDF Colonel Golan Wah. This is a fairly well-known military man who several times led Israeli rescue teams that helped cope with the consequences of natural disasters in different countries of the world. So, in January 2019, the i24 TV channel told about his work in Brazil, where hundreds of local residents went missing due to the collapse of a dam. In December 2021, The Jerusalem Post newspaper published a report on Wach's participation in the rescue operation after the collapse of a residential building in Florida. And in April 2023, The Times of Israel reportedthat the Turkish President awarded an Israeli military man for his assistance in the search operation at the site of the devastating earthquake. All these materials were accompanied by photographs of the colonel.

After the Hamas attack, Wah, a career military man, joined the IDF operation to repel the militant attack. The colonel subsequently gave comments to the world's largest media about what he saw in the combat zone, for example The New York Times, AFP And CBS. Most of the military's statements were published in mid-October, when the IDF dislodged militants from border kibbutzim and began inspecting populated areas where they found dead people and looted houses. In particular, it was Vakh witnessed, that he saw the corpse of a child beheaded during a Hamas attack.

The video, which became viral on the RuNet in early January 2024, was apparently also filmed in mid-October. On the recording, the following dialogue occurs between the Israeli colonel and the person standing behind the scenes:

- Our tanks... attacked.
— Did you shoot at them?
- Yes. (Glue.) Inside this house there were 15 more burned people, including eight small children. It's in that corner. (Glue.) Because they were blocked in this house when we had to recapture the entire settlement. And this could not be done without a tank.

At the end of the video, the logo of the Turkish state news agency Anadolu appears briefly. On the website of this media outlet it was on December 6th published a video of a conversation with Vakh, lasting more than three minutes and containing no cuts. The publication clarifies that the recording was made on October 14, 2023 in Kibbutz Holit near the border with the Gaza Strip, and the IDF colonel told foreign journalists what he saw in this village after its liberation.

“Is this where you found the couple?”
“Right where you are standing, there were two handcuffed couples lying: two men and two women. Inside this house there were 15 other burned people, including eight small children. It's in that corner. They rounded them up, killed them and burned them.
-Have you seen it?
- I took them out.
- But where does the destruction come from? I'm sorry, but where did the destruction come from?
“This destruction was caused by the fact that our tanks... attacked.” (In the original, Vakh says “This destruction was a cause of our tanks’ attack”; he probably misspoke and wanted to say because, otherwise his statement is meaningless. - Ed.)
— Did you shoot at them?
- Yes. Because they were blocked in this house when we had to recapture the entire settlement. And this could not be done without a tank.

Next, another journalist asks her question: “How many people were here and how many survived?” “No one survived from this house. We saved many from other buildings. But from this house, 19 people died, including eight children,” answers Vakh. After this, the reporters and the military move on to discuss other topics related to the Hamas attack and the liberation of the border kibbutzim.

It is noteworthy that on December 7 Anadolu posted in X, a shortened version of the video with the caption “The military spokesman’s remarks raise more questions about the role of Israeli tanks in the deaths of Israeli civilians.” An article on the agency’s website with reference to publications in the Israeli media provides, in particular, certificate a soldier who refused to fire from a tank at a residential building in Kholit until it was confirmed that there were no civilians inside.

Israeli publications actually wrote about the possible responsibility of the military for the deaths of several civilians taken prisoner by militants during an attack on border kibbutzim. However, such materials were talking about Beeri, and not about Kholit, where the video with Vakh was filmed. Yes, Newsru.co.il published an interview with one of the local residents about how Hamas first entered Be'eri on October 7, and then was liberated by the IDF. The woman claims that the military fired at the canteen where the militants were holding hostages, although they knew that there were civilians there. In January 2024, relatives of a 12-year-old girl who died in Beeri demanded from Israeli authorities to investigate the circumstances of her death.

“Verified” was unable to find similar reports about the events in Holit. Neither the Anadolu video nor other media reports made at the same time indicate that Wah admitted to firing a tank at civilians, as social media users claim. Then, in mid-October, in a comment to Canadian Global News, a military explainedthat civilians were killed by Hamas militants even before the attack on the house. In a video published by the British publication The Sun, an IDF colonel, standing near the same building, says that over the course of several days he discovered a pattern: militants gathered kibbutz residents in one place, killed them, and burned their bodies.

Since the viral video spread in the English-language segment of the Internet earlier than the Russian one (no later than the second half of November), fact checkers from PolitiFact, Lead Stories And Check Your Fact. They referred a request for comment to the IDF. Israeli military officials confirmed that a more complete version of the video has been made publicly available, which clearly shows that Wach was describing the scene he and his fellow soldiers saw during the liberation of Kibbutz Holit.

At the same time, an IDF colonel appears to have incorrectly stated the number of people killed in Holit. According to Haaretz and Newsru.co.il, available at the time of writing, 13 and 14 people died in this kibbutz on October 7, respectively, while Wach spoke of 15 bodies found in just one building, and four more nearby. He also claimed that eight of those killed were children - there are no minors in the Israeli media lists of those killed in Holita, and only seven victims have no age specified.

Thus, in the viral video, Golan Wah does not admit that his subordinates fired from a tank at a house with Israeli civilians inside, who were later declared victims of Hamas - the video was edited. In the full recording, Wach, although he says that the building was hit by armored vehicles, notes that civilians in Kibbutz Holit were killed by militants even before the Israeli army counterattacked. “Verified” was unable to find eyewitness evidence refuting these words. At the same time, a resident of at least one other kibbutz said that civilians were killed by the Israeli military during a battle with terrorists, and relatives of one victim asked the authorities to conduct an investigation.

Cover photo: IDF via Wikimedia Commons