Does a video that purports to show Israeli soldiers refusing to fight against Hamas prove that the media is manipulating people about the 2023 Hamas-Israel conflict? No, that's not true: The video, dated September 2023, allegedly shows riots at an Israeli military base during a training course, over the Israeli government's judicial overhaul plan. This predates the Hamas attacks by more than a month. There is no evidence the soldiers were protesting against fighting Hamas.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) on TikTok on October 8, 2023, under the title "The truth" (translated from Romanian to English by Lead Stories staff).
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Oct 10 10:57:59 2023 UTC)
The user is sharing a clip from Sky News Arabia's TikTok account, dated September 7, 2023. According to its description, written in Arabic and translated using Google, it shows "riots at an Israeli military base carried out by soldiers from the Golani Brigade during a training course."
The Golani Brigade is an elite infantry unit within the Israeli military specializing in ground warfare, whose soldiers have a history of desertion over alleged unfair treatment in the military.
In the video, the user is saying in Romanian (translated to English by Lead Stories staff):
That's what happened, brothers, maybe you thought I was crazy. It is the Israeli soldiers who simply refused. The media from Romania and the international media will never tell you this.
In another video posted on his profile, this one on October 7, 2023, the day of the Hamas attack on the Gaza-Israel barrier, he said that Sky News Arabia was showing a video with Israeli soldiers refusing to fight Hamas, proof of the huge difference between reality and what the media shows about the conflict between Israel and Hamas. He also urged his audience to not let themselves be manipulated by the media.
The footage shown by Sky News Arabia was allegedly taken on September 4, 2023, and depicted soldiers protesting against the Israeli government's recent judicial overhaul, according to some news websites. It was later reported that several of the protest participants were disciplined by superiors and arrested following the leak.
Since its announcement in July 2023, tens of thousands of military personnel from different sectors of the Israeli army have protested against the government's plan to limit the authority of the national judiciary and the Supreme Court.
