r/worldnews 3h ago

Israel/Palestine IDF reveals: Gaza soccer figures presented as athletes were terrorists

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/byzfjpcnfg
73 Upvotes

319 comments sorted by

97

u/likeabosstroll 1h ago

Summary of the comments
You can’t believe X because (insert which side) has incentive to lie while my side has no incentive to lie and plus every single person on their side is a Hamas/IDF agent so you should only trust (insert majorly biased source)

u/HugsForUpvotes 40m ago

Yes but my general opinions about the larger issue makes me know the truth in this specific context. I've never been wrong before.

u/physedka 51m ago

Or just call it AI slop and collect the upvotes.

u/HardlyW0rkingHard 44m ago

As an Iranian, I know full well that the irgc that funds hamas does this shit all the time. It sounds unbelievable, but they don’t care. They do this shit all the time.

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u/HarEr89 2h ago

Who would have thought. He was 80% terrorist, 10% soccer player and 10% journalist.

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u/Afraid-Detective1222 2h ago

you missed some percentage for being a doctor

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u/formidable_croissant 2h ago

And a few for the pregnancy

u/CO420Tech 1h ago

Hysterical pregnancy?

224

u/CraftyPerformance272 2h ago

Israel does bad things. But Hamas is terrible and also does tons of bad things. When Israel bombed hospitals and other places then found giant tunnels underneath them with military equipment people just ignored it. When Hamas uses ambulances to transport weapons and Fighters people ignore it.

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u/Venat14 2h ago edited 1h ago

Reminds me of when the BBC ran a massive story about Israel bombing a hospital early in the war and the whole world went nuts over it. Then the BBC admitted, "oops, it was actually PIJ rockets that hit the hospital not Israel."

But by that point, all the pro-Palestinians were just "How dare Israel put a hospital in the way of those innocent rockets!"

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u/rib333 1h ago

I remember that footage, initially they claimed 500 died. The TV news showed footage from inside the hospital and it was sadly laughable. Medical staff had clearly been told to rush around for the cameras, but they clearly didn’t really have anything to rush around for so it was all a bit bizarre.

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u/nhytgbvfeco 2h ago

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not Hamas*

u/Free-Description-736 1h ago

That's like pointing at WW2 and claiming US troops did something, not the British.

Hamas and PIJ are allies and were committing atrocities in equal measure.

u/nhytgbvfeco 50m ago

Sure, but this specific incident was done by PIJ. I don’t see why we shouldn’t keep our facts straight. Those are still separate organisations.

u/Free-Description-736 47m ago

Because I find the claim that they are separate organizations to be a sophistry. The Azov Brigade was a separate organization from the Ukranian Armed Forces. To claim that the actions of one didn't reflect on the other would have been a lie, and the entire world knew it and that's why Ukraine was forced to do something about it.

Hamas is a sovereign power. That means it owns responsibility for any paramilitary units acting within its territory with its permission. They are separate in the same way the Army and Navy are separate.

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u/HutSutRawlson 2h ago

It’s a familiar cycle. The IDF makes these claims, people dismiss them out of hand because Jews the IDF always lies. Then months later, independent reporting confirms the initial claims, but no one is paying attention by that point.

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u/Sleeve_hamster 2h ago

These are from Hamas obituaries. The IDF doesn't need to make up anything.

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u/LaGeG 2h ago

Maybe if they didn't lie constantly people would find them more believable.

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u/Afraid-Detective1222 2h ago

The problem is that they don't. People are just unwilling to listen to facts that don't fit their narrative.

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u/HutSutRawlson 2h ago

Well that’s the thing. They don’t lie constantly. People like you just assume they are lying, and your attempts to find out the truth end there.

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u/Key-Coyote-4755 2h ago

They often aren't though. people assume they are, and then months later it's validated in some other manner but it's not national news anymore so nobody cares.

IDF isn't perfect at all of course, and treat people poorly and inhumanely. That said, so many things they claimed were dismissed as "lies of the israeli army" and then turned out to be true. Even with photo evidence people try to argue it's not.

Like, sure, Israel and IDF are pretty terrible people. The people they are dealing with are WAY worse. Let's not forget that many neighboring arab nations refused to deal with these people anymore as well because of just how indoctrinated by Hamas they were.

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u/JD0x0 1h ago

"people ignore it."

They don't ignore it.

They ignore IDF's evidence, while taking Hamas' "evidence" at face value.

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u/PurpleParrot1999 2h ago

theres some weird islamic mind virus with the left where they just give them a free pass. they're all pro palistine anti israel despite not being informed in the slightest.

and very much anti andrew tate but also diminish the uk muslim grooming gangs

its a mystery

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u/HutSutRawlson 2h ago

Israel = white = bad

Muslim = brown = good

Never mind the fact that many Israelis are brown or black. But most people have a very stereotypical (I.e. bigoted and ignorant) idea that Jews are all bearded guys from Eastern Europe, or assimilated people from the U.S.

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u/EagleForty 2h ago

People don't ignore it. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Of course they are committing war crimes.

Does that make it OK for an internationally recognized, modern democracy to commit war crimes against the civilians living under Hamas rule?

If you want to compare a terrorist organization to the Israeli government, don't be surprised that people call the Israeli government a terrorist organization.

For a little context, would you have been OK with the US beheading people on camera in Afghanistan because the Taliban beheaded people on camera?

Of course not. If you want to claim to be better than a terrorist group, then don't act like a terrorist group.

People (including myself) are demanding that Israel act like a civilized nation if they want the support of other civilized nations.

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u/Silverleaf_86 1h ago

Do you think the criticism Israel gets is proportional to the means they are using in order to safeguard civilians?

All while fighting against a terror organisation that will happily sacrifice every civilian around them just for PR against Israel?

What would you do differently in Israel’s position, how would you avoid civilian casualties under this setting in Gaza?

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u/Pleasant-Seesaw6119 1h ago

Hamas commits war crimes against its own people. Important distinction.

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u/sebastos3 3h ago

The IDF is of course, the single most reliable source in this...

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u/commentinator 2h ago

The source for Ahmed Mohammed Hassan Abu Al-Atta who was one player mentioned was “Islamic Jihad’s military wing published his name and photograph and identified him as a platoon commander in the organization.”

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u/Dixiehusker 2h ago

Well that seems pretty reliable.

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u/Acrobatic_Rush7653 51m ago

Both Hamas and PIJ have been publishing official obituaries by the 100s since May. THAT WOULD BE THE SOURCE for most of these. Actually most of these (and the dozens of "journalists" also included in the obituaries info dump) did have IDF statements when they were killed stating they are known terrorists, but of course no one believed it because "IDF always lies".

You are taking the next logical step here and refuse to believe PIJ itself when it states that "international FIFA referee" Mohammed Sami Mohammed Khattab was in fact a commander in Islamic Jihad’s Central Camps Brigade. Same idea for the rest of the fallen "athletes".

Not even mad, that's amazing.

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u/jcrestor 1h ago

The original information is from Palestinian authorities.

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u/tsioumiou 2h ago

Definitely more reliable than Hamas that every news agency is using as a source

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u/magicaldingus 2h ago

Antizionists when ha'aretz says something: "see? Even Israel says they're evil!"

Antizionists when any other Israeli publication says something: "well you can't trust any Israeli publications"

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u/Desi0190 3h ago

More reliable than anyone who’s said they’re just athletes

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u/Fxwriter 2h ago

Israel has free press, and a few of those are always fact checking their Gov and the IDF, so even if you don’t trust the IDF you can trust that they will be fact checked
Fuck Ben Gavir

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u/avax96 2h ago

Why would you side with Hamas man? 

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u/mrSalamander 2h ago

Stupid and disingenuous question. One can be anti-something without automatically being pro something else. Give 3rd grade another try maybe it’ll stick this time.

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u/CasualGamerNat 2h ago

Of course, like I am anti both governments, but pro innocent civilians. Just because you don’t like Isreal does not and should not mean you support Hamas or PLO, and while Palestines loses are far greater than Israel’s, there are innocent civilians suffering on both sides.

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u/JD0x0 1h ago

One can be anti-something without automatically being pro something else.

Sure, but when you automatically reject any IDF claim as lies, and then believe Hamas' narratives without pause, it is VERY VERY telling of who you're sympathizing with.

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u/MisanthOptics 1h ago

I think most of us are trying to side with the truth. Unfortunately that seems almost impossible these days with the “information” systems that we’ve built

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u/HendrixChord12 2h ago

Hamas is as unreliable, if not more so. Who fucking knows either way without clear evidence.

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u/CowMooMan 2h ago

From the article "in June 2026, Islamic Jihad’s military wing published his name and photograph and identified him as a platoon commander in the organization."

It seems pretty safe to say he was a military commander lol

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u/mclannee 2h ago

are you pro hamas?

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u/[deleted] 2h ago

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u/dannyboy_S 2h ago

Lol you can use this argument on anything

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u/Imaginary-Hyena2858 2h ago

The leap to that from someone saying the IDF is unreliable is wild. Don't y'all ever get tired of that line?

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u/JD0x0 1h ago

When you automatically reject any IDF claim as lies/unreliable, and then believe Hamas' narratives without pause, it is VERY VERY telling of who you're sympathizing with.

Also, when has the IDF actually been proven to be unreliable?

Also, also:

in June 2026, Islamic Jihad’s military wing published his name and photograph and identified him as a platoon commander in the organization."

So, automatically rejecting the IDF's claims here seems EXTREMELY biased in one direction.

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u/rgvtim 2h ago

Are those supposed to be the same guy?

u/HockeyHocki 22m ago

think worldnews doesn't like x can't link it but you can look that guy up and you'll find much clearer pics of him where you can tell he's clearly same guy as in the uniform

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u/venividiavicii 1h ago

just guzzle the AI and don’t ask questions.

u/DetroitvsEveryone242 1h ago

The people salivating over this in the comments are not smart enough to tell

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u/Insensibilities 2h ago edited 2h ago

To put this into perspective, the total number of football players killed by the IDF in Gaza is around 400 - there are multiple sources for this on the web.

The IDF is saying that 12 of them were associated with Hamas or Islamic Jihad. If we take the IDF at its word, then that works out to 3 percent of the soccer players killed.

For what it is worth, I don't think the IDF is specifically targeting soccer players in Gaza, they have killed upwards of 3% of the population of Gaza (70K out of 2M, 21K of which are children), that is bound to be a lot of every type of demographic.

u/TheGazelle 1h ago

... How exactly are we getting "400 football players"?

Are they just counting anyone in a fucking beer league?

For reference, premier league clubs have 25 players, and they pull players from all over Europe and the rest of the world. With 20 clubs, that's 500 players.

So you're telling me Gaza, a place with only ~2m people of whom ~43% are under 14, somehow has enough football players to make up almost an entire professional league, and those are just the ones that were killed?

Like just use a shred of common sense here. What makes more sense, that a tiny enclave with no control over its own borders and no economy somehow has enough professional football players to for a full league all by itself, or that the terrorists with full control of media and all information coming out of the strip are lying/exaggerating to make their enemy's actions seem more morally repugnant?

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u/jayb556677 2h ago

According to Hamas, 50k out of the 72k, were militants, they pay military benefits to their families. This means civilian deaths closer to 22k

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u/Venat14 2h ago

u/gbbmiler 1h ago

I don’t think that the article you posted was about the 72k number, I believe it was about the lancet report that estimated indirect deaths at nearly 200k. Which was pretty obviously a biased overcount the day it was written.

3

u/Ombric_Shalazar 1h ago

if we take that accuracy rate at face value then the idf's precision when looking at all people killed overall is around 70% and their precision when looking at just football players is around 3% based on the comment above.

there certainly seems to be a pattern of erroneously targeting athletes. 

it could be that athletes are far less likely to actually be members of hamas, or perhaps football players are deliberately being targeted at a higher rate, or some combination of such factors

either way the data tells a pretty different story than the words do

u/Acrobatic_Rush7653 31m ago

That specific claim (that went viral on social media) has been debunked even by the Israeli side lol. 19,000 payments to all widows (not specifically widows of Hamas members), 50,000 planned payments for "families most in need". I mean just common sense tells us that if 50,000 payouts "to widows" represented 50,000 individual Hamas militants, that means the total for Hamas alone is much higher than 50k since factually MANY militants killed were unmarried. Add PIJ to that end you end up with more militants killed than the entire 75k total death toll.

At best the ratio for civilians vs armed militants is 1-1 (50%). More likely 1.5 civilians per militant which is still pretty good against for urban combat a ununiformed fanatical enemy that had literally "dug in" among 2 million civilians.

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u/jayb556677 2h ago

There is more than one entity paying funds to families, Hamas is paying around 20k I believe but the PA also has a “martyrs fund” which has increased payout to families for close to 30k more. The martyr fund also pays out for previous dead militants as well as those in the West Bank so it’s an approximate number based on how many more people have been added to the payout list since October 7th minus West Bank deaths

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u/Hawkay 2h ago

Why do you expect a comprehensive list of every single Hamas member killed? Do you also want to know from the IDF how and where they killed him?

What about demanding those facts from Gaza’s health authorities? Or Hamas?
Oh right, they literally don’t report it.

In stark contrast to the IDF, or Israel, that reports every single casualty - you only get “2 people killed” with no identification from Gaza..

This data is only an example of how Hamas hides behind civilian disguises, and how many double-faced terrorists there are. So they can report “a football player was murdered by Israel!!1!” Instead of “a squad commander has been precisely targeted by Israel”.

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u/HarEr89 2h ago

Yeah, when Israel kills 7 Hamas terrorists the Hamas just reports "7 people were killed".

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u/IAmANobodyAMA 2h ago

And if any were teenagers then they are counted as “children”

It’s a sad situation all around and obfuscating important details doesn’t help

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u/HarshComputing 2h ago

12 of them can be proved to be associated with Hamas. Same goes with the reported 'journalists' killed. Bit by bit Israel is presenting proof that Hamas allegations were false all along.

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u/Hobohemia_ 2h ago

And yet in the West Bank, Israeli settlers are attacking journalists and killing civilians.

There is plenty of evil behavior on all sides here: Hamas, IDF, IRGC, and the US are all committing various atrocities.

And the innocent Palestinian, Israeli, and Iranian civilians are the ones caught in the middle.

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u/IAmANobodyAMA 2h ago

Children is a loaded term here too. That includes teenagers who are potentially combatants.

I’m not justifying the killing, but context is important when dealing with sensationalized figures.

u/badass_panda 1h ago

The fact that UN and NGO investigations repeatedly found Hamas, PIJ and the PLO to be using child soldiers is just conveniently forgotten.

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u/barak8006 2h ago

400 football players mhahahahahaha

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u/mabus42 2h ago

IDF doesn't specifically target anyone, let alone soccer players. They just target everyone in Gaza.

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u/DarthGlazer 2h ago

Hamas at the beginning of the war were 2% of the demographic (they've obviously grown). Using percents on such a small population is irrelevant.

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u/DoomSnail31 1h ago

"Israeli newspaper quotes the IDF" sure seems like a trustworthy source in what Gaza does. At this point, doesn't the Israeli government consider every single Palestinian as de facto terrorists on account of being Palestinian?

Not removing this link as an obviously biased source is certainly a choice

u/JD0x0 26m ago

What does it say about you when both IDF and the terrorists admit these players were part of terrorist organizations, and you STILL reject it?

You were so quick to reject Israel's narrative you didn't even read the article.

After his death, sympathetic reports about him appeared in Reuters, ESPN and the Qatari television network Al Jazeera. The reports portrayed him solely as an innocent soccer player, but in June 2026, Islamic Jihad’s military wing published his name and photograph and identified him as a platoon commander in the organization.

u/The-Great-Mullein 1h ago

Please read the article:

"in June 2026, Islamic Jihad’s military wing published his name and photograph and identified him as a platoon commander in the organization."

u/AtomWorker 52m ago

I take it you didn’t read the article.

u/magicaldingus 44m ago

At this point, doesn't the Israeli government consider every single Palestinian as de facto terrorists on account of being Palestinian?

If that were the case, wouldn't it be easier for Israel to start culling their own 20% Palestinian/Arab minority?

And if not, wouldn't it be rather easy for Israel to kill all 2 million residents of Gaza with bombs? Why bother sending soldiers in at all? Why use thousands of small bombs when bigger bombs would do the trick?

This hypothesis doesn't pass scratch tests.

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u/stevemoveyafeet 2h ago

Reveals/makes up 

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u/Pleasant-Seesaw6119 3h ago

Horrible people can also be athletes

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u/cinciNattyLight 2h ago

You mean the entire Argentinian roster?

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u/Pleasant-Seesaw6119 2h ago

You really need to run cover for Hamas? lol so fucking pathetic

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u/Candid_Initiative992 2h ago

Pretty sure that comment was being sarcastic lol

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u/cinciNattyLight 2h ago

It’s a joke…

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u/Pleasant-Seesaw6119 2h ago

I apologize, soccer humor doesnt resonate with Americans

5

u/dondeestasbueno 2h ago

Sure, I’m aware of the NFL.

u/Velocity_Rob 1h ago

“  According to a 2018 study published by Oxford University Press, Ynet publishes articles and interviews at the instigation of the Israeli government, without declaring any connection with the government – these publications aim to stir up pro-Israeli sentiment”

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u/LookltsGordo 2h ago

lol are we taking the IDF seriously these days? Theyre terrorists themselves...

1

u/thatpj 1h ago

wonder how arrr soccer is handling this

u/Most-Shelter5577 1h ago

Just like the doctor they shot.

and the press they shot.

and the aid workers they shot.

you think a country with this much military support would at least be better soldiers.