Offices destroyed in Gaza, suspicion of manipulation ... what is Israel playing with the media?

The media building in Gaza was "a perfectly legitimate target." This Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly assumed the destruction, the day before, of the tower where the Al-Jazeera channel and the AP agency had their offices. A new challenge to the international community, which condemned this strike, but also to the foreign press, which was already accusing it of having played a trick on it this week by using it for strategic purposes. These last hours, in the editors installed on the spot, thus turned in loop these questions: what then was Israel trying to do and what interest did the Tsahal have in targeting the offices of journalists?

The tension was actually rising since Thursday evening between the press and the Jewish state.

That evening, the Israeli army announced on its social networks an attack in the Gaza Strip.

IDF air and ground troops are currently attacking the Gaza Strip.

- IDF (@Tsahal_IDF) May 13, 2021

An announcement coupled with a message on WhatsApp to a group of foreign correspondents based in Israel, sent by the press service of the Israeli army, "officially informing them that ground troops were in operation inside Gaza", says left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Immediately, the information is relayed by the media and press agencies around the world.

But two hours later, rear engine: the army publishes a "clarification" to say that there were "no soldiers" in the Palestinian enclave, and evokes an "internal communication problem".

VIDEO.

Gaza: building housing Al-Jazeera and AP agency pulverized by Israeli missiles

A simple mistake?

Israeli media such as the Jerusalem Post, however, believe that this false information was in fact being used to fool Hamas.

Nothing was happening on the ground, but in the air: “160 planes gathered for a massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip,” the newspaper explains.

Their target was what the Israeli armed forces call the

metro

, an underground network of tunnels where Hamas has stored its weapons and which it uses to move around the Gaza Strip safe from Israeli planes.

By making believe in an imminent assault on the ground, the Israeli army would therefore have forced the Hamas fighters to set in motion.

The attack paid off, as Hamas military leaders were killed.

"Israeli services avoid disinformation"

Have the journalists therefore been duped? Impossible to know for sure. Some evoke a simple misunderstanding of the message, a bad translation, like the journalist of AP Fares Akram. According to geopolitologist Didier Billion, deputy director of Iris and specialist in the Middle East, it is also possible that this very quickly denied announcement was the result of a mess, illustrating the differences within the Israeli army. "The leaders of Hamas are experienced in hiding, with the greatest of caution, they compartmentalize their movements," he also puts into perspective. The IDF knows that a pipe announcement will not bring military officials out of their hideout to defend Gazans, they are not the ones taking on the Kalashnikovs, Hamas does not operate that way. "

For Charles Enderlin too, former correspondent for Jerusalem of France Televisions, it was indeed an error which discredits the spokesperson for the army. “In general, the Israeli services avoid this kind of disinformation, which is still quite easy to deconstruct. Rather, lies are meant to cover up big blunders. "

Finally, three hypotheses are opposed, advances for his part Bertrand Badie, researcher at Ceri (center for international studies and research): a dissuasive announcement, "way of saying that it is a serious option which can occur at any time. 'any time', a tactical announcement to redeploy Hamas forces, as journalists think, and finally the hypothesis of diplomatic intervention.

“Perhaps that was the real intention within the Israeli government, which was dissuaded from outside, by the United States for example, and which would have sought to save face by pleading error.

It would be risky to arbitrate between these three.

"

"The fact of alienating the Western press is strange"

It was in this already hot context that the strike targeting the tower where AP and Al-Jazeera were located came two days later.

A new action that is difficult to understand which, this time, shocks the press around the world.

Starting with AP, whose president, Gary Pruitt, is indignant at an “incredibly worrying development”.

Video of AP and AlJazeera journalists picking up whatever belongings they can before evacuating their building.

We see them take their broadcasting equipment and their vests by bullet ... before leaving everything behind.

#gaza https://t.co/aYgLwHsJR5

- emilie_baujard (@emilie_baujard) May 15, 2021

"This is the first time that the press has been so targeted, the attack is highly symbolic," Bertrand Badie is surprised.

We know that Al-Jazeera, engaged alongside the Palestinians, does not have good press in Israel, but we wonder why AP.

Tackling AP was inevitably forcing Biden to react, and what was the point?

The fact of alienating the Western press is strange.

"

The bombardment had been announced a few minutes before by the army, allowing the occupants of the tower to evacuate the scene.

To justify the destruction of the building, the army explained that it housed, according to it, "entities belonging to the military intelligence of the terrorist organization Hamas".

"The pretext of the presence of Hamas is mentioned almost every time," recalls the researcher.

The situation is reversed by saying that Hamas purposely put civilians in such and such a building.

However, Gaza's territorial crampedness is such that this phenomenon of entanglement between civilians and soldiers is inevitable.

"

Towards an investigation?

By targeting the media tower, Israel is also taking a risk, that of "degrading its image", believes Didier Billion, while the government is "in awe of the image it projects internationally".

"Can you imagine for a second that any other government could afford to destroy a building where a number of international media outlets are located, and that this does not elicit a reaction?

No.

This raises the issue of the sense of impunity enjoyed by Israeli leaders.

"

However, since the last war in 2014, the fate of the Palestinians was no longer really in the news.

A disinterest that suited Benyamin Netanyahu.

"This allowed him to focus attention on the brand of Israel, high-tech and recently the success of the vaccination campaign", analyzes Charles Enderlin.

Read alsoClashes between Israel and Hamas: six questions about a conflagration

But the tide has turned. With the current crisis and the cameras once again focused on Israel, an “anti-press” atmosphere is felt: “Teams of journalists have been attacked by rioters, Jews but also Arabs”, observes the author of

our correspondent at Jerusalem

(Seuil editions). “The fact that the army allows itself to manipulate the foreign press and then destroy in Gaza the building where the big agency AP and Al-Jazeera were located is, in my opinion, a completely wrong decision-making process. Israeli officials had not thought about the possible consequences. "

On Sunday, Reporters Without Borders asked International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to determine whether the bombings constitute war crimes. In early March, the ICC opened an investigation into crimes committed since June 2014 in the occupied Palestinian territories.