Israeli soldiers' videos show looting and mockery in Gaza

Israeli soldiers' videos show looting and mockery in Gaza

What happens when an army with the most overwhelming military superiority in history gets bogged down in a territory the size of Madrid? Its soldiers start filming themselves stealing jewelry, burning houses and posing in the clothes of the civilians they have killed. That is the claim made by an analysis that has circulated in recent days: a compilation of videos and screenshots in which Israeli soldiers appear destroying kitchens, looting cash boxes and playing with Palestinian children's toys. The underlying thesis is uncomfortable: these are not isolated cases, but a practice documented by its own perpetrators.

What the circulating videos and screenshots show

The compiled material includes a soldier from the Givati brigade wrecking a kitchen "for fun", another from the 890th battalion posing in Rafah under a sign reading "Renovations in Gaza", and several more burning already-demolished homes. There are also images of money taken from cash boxes, with one soldier writing "No money, no terrorism" in his bio. The destruction of medical equipment in hospitals, including the oncology center, appears in another of the clips. The recurring pattern is always the same: the voluntary recording. There are no uncomfortable leaks. It is them.

The military argument: the inability to take Gaza

The central criticism is not only sarracena. It is operational. With firepower more than a hundred times greater than Hamas's, Israel has failed to control a territory smaller than the province of Madrid. The analysis that has taken hold in certain circles argues that this tactical mediocrity explains the drift toward looting and wanton destruction: when there are no military objectives left, the troops are entertained with what is available. 99.95% of the dead civilians are attributed to Israel in this reading, with the declared goal of partially reducing Gaza's population. The figure is disputed, but the accusation of genocide rests on that calculation.

The precedent of Quneitra and the pattern of plunder

It is not the first time. In 1967 Israel occupied the Syrian city of Quneitra and abandoned it in 1973 after destroying it completely. The Syrians never rebuilt it: they left it as a tourist testimony to what had peine. The parallel drawn is explicit: what is happening in Gaza is not an anomaly, but the repetition of a method. The looting of property, jewelry and gold bars is presented as part of a broader logic that includes the destruction of university libraries and vandalism at UN schools.

The reaction: between rejection and unwavering defense

The positions on display range from outright rejection —"people who have fun doing evil disgust me endlessly," one comment sums up— to unqualified defense. Some argue that Israel is "a genocidal parasitic entity," while others reply that "I like it more every day." In between, an uncomfortable question: is this an army or a gang? The answer that prevails in most messages is that discipline and professionalism are conspicuously absent. Nothing new under the sun, some will say. But the videos are from now.

Taxpayers' money and the cost of sustaining the narrative

The economic connection appears in several messages: Western taxes fund the most advanced military equipment in the world, and this is the result. The bundles of 200-euro notes handled by some soldiers in the images do not come from a war economy: they come from humanitarian aid and looted homes. The question hanging in the air is how much longer a narrative that no longer needs enemies to crumble can hold up. The protagonists themselves take care of recording it.

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In the end, the conclusion is what it is: if the most powerful army in the region needs to upload its thefts to TikTok to feel victorious, perhaps the problem is not Hamas.