Forum debate: 'bombing is healthy' and doubts over the images

Forum debate: 'bombing is healthy' and doubts over the images

An Al Jazeera video shows neighbourhoods of Gaza reduced to rubble and rescue teams working among the remains of buildings hit overnight. The footage, released by the Qatari network, is the starting point for a discussion that within hours shifts from solidarity with Israel to systematic suspicion of everything coming out of the Strip. The post that opens the thread is blunt: "Go ahead Israel, you're bombing terrorists, so it's healthy bombing." From there, the thread becomes a contest over what is verifiable and what is not when the ground is under military control.

From visible destruction to 'it's all AI'

The first reaction to the images is an acknowledgement of the devastation. "Many dead, we can see them here," one participant sums up. But within a few posts the focus shifts: a tweet from the AJN Agency is shared claiming that the victims who later appear in mass graves are "extras," and from then on the thesis takes hold that the visual material is fabricated. "It's all AI and models as usual," another declares, with a link to an economic forum as supposed proof.

The discussion drifts toward a question repeated in a mocking tone: why do the videos from Gaza mostly show children and babies in the arms of women? "Do they do anything besides having endless children?" one asks. The reply comes with a smirk: "If they bombed Spain, you'd see women holding cats." The argument, more rhetorical than documentary, serves to reinforce the idea that the material is staged.

Who created Hamas and who brings in the migrants?

The thread takes a turn when the thesis enters the picture that Israel created Hamas and promotes the 2030 Agenda to facilitate the arrival of Muslim refugees to Europe. Spanish media outlets are cited to claim that Israeli innovation works "hand in hand" with the UN's sustainable development goals, and it is added that Israel is now angry with the international body for not backing its operation.

The response is swift and dismissive: the person holding that thesis is accused of repeating a fable and is reproached for having tried to convince others to convert to Sarracin. The argument intensifies with cross-accusations of treachery and of serving foreign interests. Amid the noise, someone makes a point that is not minor: "Israel created Hamas and Israel promotes the 2030 agenda so that, among other things, Muslim refugees come to Europe by the millions."

The lesson some demand and others reject

The harshest tone comes from those who argue that Israel must teach the Palestinians a lesson: "Palestinian Jovenlandeses have to learn who is superior, they have to learn who is inferior." The argument holds that the bombing will only stop when the population delivers justice to the terrorists who, according to this version, use them as human shields. The answer is a rhetorical question: "They've been learning for 70 years and nothing."

Against that line, another current argues that the Israeli operation is not defence but collective punishment, and that the destruction of Gaza is presented as Palestinian propaganda while its annihilation is openly called for. "According to the dick-wavers, Gaza in ruins is Palestinian propaganda, but they themselves openly call for its annihilation," one post sums up. The discussion becomes tangled with references to the pandemic, 5G and graphene, with accusations of conspiracy-mongering on one side and sheep-like conformity on the other.

The video pointing at the Israeli army itself

One of the most striking turns comes with the circulation of testimony which, it is claimed, indicates that the Israeli army itself killed some of its own citizens on October 7 with tanks and missiles, and then displayed the bodies as proof of Hamas's barbarity. "Ask and you shall receive, right up the arse," reads the comment accompanying the material. The accusation is not accompanied by independent verification and remains one more of the unconfirmed hypotheses circulating.

The exchange closes with a post pointing to information fatigue: "One day a pandemic, then in the middle of that pandemic a Barabbas in Minneapolis, then a sovereign country attacking another and being bad, then a sovereign country attacking others but this time it's good." The implicit conclusion is that audiences consume packaged narratives with no ability to verify them. And the unsettling fact is this: amid a debate over whether the images are real or fabricated, not a single independent verification of anything has been provided.