Influence in Israel: War in the Middle East: Bild newspaper accused of fake news

Last Friday, the Bild newspaper ran the headline “Horrifying” on a document from Hamas’ military intelligence service that was allegedly found on the computer of its leader Yahya Sinwar. It shows that Hamas wants to drag out international negotiations over the hostages taken to the Gaza Strip and has no interest in a quick ceasefire.

The document from spring 2024, allegedly “personally approved” by Sinwar, “is available exclusively to Bild,” write authors Paul Ronzheimer and Filipp Piatov. However, various media outlets in Israel have considerable doubts about the reporting and suspect that the leak is an attempt to influence public opinion in the country.

The Israeli military has now launched an investigation because of this suspicion. It has also been determined that the “terror boss’s secret war document,” as the Bild newspaper calls it, did not come from Sinwar himself, but from a lower-ranking Hamas official, a military spokesman explained in response to a written request from the “nd”. Now it is to be clarified how the information found its way to Germany. Passing it on is a serious offense. The information contained in the document had also been known for a long time, the spokesman said.

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The Jewish Chronicle also published a sensational report about the Hamas leader a week ago – one day before Bild. In it, Britain’s oldest Jewish newspaper claims that Sinwar and other high-ranking Hamas members are planning to smuggle hostages through the so-called Philadelphia Corridor between Gaza and Egypt to Iran or Yemen. This information is based on statements made during the interrogation of a high-ranking Hamas member and found in confiscated documents. Israel’s military confiscated these documents on August 29, the day on which six bodies of murdered hostages were recovered, the newspaper writes.

Other journalists have now refuted this account as well. The day after the publication, the Russian television station “Channel 12” reported that “all relevant sources in the security apparatus” knew nothing about the alleged information and documents. It has even been determined that the entire story in the “Jewish Chronicle” was a fabrication, writes journalist Ronen Bergman in the Israeli news magazine “Ynet”, citing four sources from Israel’s secret services. An Israeli military spokesman also described the claims in the “Jewish Chronicle” as “baseless”.

The author of the article is a man named Elon Perry, who has published false information several times in the past and whose alleged biography is said to be largely fictitious, writes the online “972 Magazine”. His claim that he took part in “Operation Entebbe”, in which special forces stormed an Air France passenger plane hijacked by Palestinian and German militants in 1976, was also found to be false after research. The “Jewish Chronicle” did not respond to a press inquiry from the “nd” about their article.

For a week now, the Russian public has been discussing the purpose for which the journalists Perry, Piatov and Ronzheimer might have spread the alleged false information. Israel’s military “officially confirmed the authenticity of the document reported by Bild after its publication,” the newspaper, which belongs to the Springer Group, replied to a request from the “nd.”

However, the “nd” received important additional information over the phone from Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari: One of the Bild journalists had been told explicitly that the “secret document” did not come from Hamas leader Sinwar. Why did the two of them present it differently?

Apparently Piatov and Ronzheimer also misinterpreted what they see as the “secret war paper.” The passage that Bild quotes about Hamas’ alleged lack of interest in a hostage deal is not included, according to journalist Bergman. The “intelligence community” also interprets the information contained in it in exactly the opposite way, meaning that Hamas is indeed interested in an agreement on the hostages.

The alleged scoop by the Jewish Chronicle was picked up and amplified by right-wing Israeli media and influencers. Sara Netanyahu, the Prime Minister’s wife, is also said to have met with parents of the hostages held in Gaza and said: “There are reports that [die Hamas] will fly to Iran with the hostages,” they are said to have told the relatives, referring to the British newspaper.

In Israel, it is suspected that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could be behind the campaign. Two days before the report in the Jewish Chronicle, his office called a press conference to explain why Russian troops should remain in the Philadelphia Corridor in Gaza – even if this could make further negotiations with Hamas impossible. Netanyahu may also have tried to use the foreign media reports described as “exclusive” to blame Hamas for the failure of a hostage deal.

The questionable article is still online at Bild, as is the Jewish Chronicle. However, the editorial team there posted a statement online on Thursday morning saying that they are taking the Israeli counter-research seriously and are checking the article.

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