Israel asks the Red Cross to investigate the death of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya

An IDF investigation showed no evidence of involvement with the death of amputee Ibrahim Abu Toriya, who was allegedly killed while rioting near the border of Gaza.

Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Major General Yoav Mordechai  announced "the investigation did not show in any way that Ibrahim Abu Toriya died of live IDF fire", and he asked for the Red Cross to further investigate.

He asked Red Cross Delegation head Mr Jacques De Maio "to find all of the facts and data, including the report from the ambulance in which Abu Toriya traveled, medical reports and findings from doctors in Gaza hospitals, and any other existing data."

From Aruz Sheva

Mordechai also noted that there was no basis for the false reports claiming that a sniper shot directly and intentionally at Abu Toriya. He emphasized that "we have to put an end to the industry of rumors, exaggerations, and lies which incense public discourse and incite to violence. There are too many questions and too many things which are unclear about Abu Toriya's death, and I suggest we investigate and find out the truth."

From the twitter account of IDF Spokesperson Peter Lerner

1/6 This is going to be a thread about the #ibrahimabuthuraya case. It has caused a very emotional response on twitter and I want to lay down some questions.
Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, participated in a riot meters near the Gaza border, was killed. pic.twitter.com/uXlPoemMVH

— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) December 24, 2017

2/6 The IDF was blamed, and #AbuThuraya was celebrated as a martyr. However, the IDF concluded in its investigation that no live fire was shot by its forces on the border. So who or what killed him? Just asking the question is not justifying his death, it's a quest for truth. pic.twitter.com/IHHugi8JvY

— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) December 24, 2017

3/6 On the night prior to his death, he told his family this would be his last dinner because he intends on becoming a martyr. Why is this not relevant to the question? https://t.co/46kwWsFFP3

— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) December 24, 2017

4/6 If the IDF is telling the truth the question remains, how did he die? Did he fall off his chair and hit his head? Did he fall off of the electricity lines while hanging flags? Did a gas canister bounce of off the ground and hit him? I don't know. pic.twitter.com/VSduxcPuSv

— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) December 24, 2017

5/6 I do know that @cogat_israel demanded yesterday to put the questions and rumors to rest, appealed to Hamas to convey to @ICRC_ilot,  a neutral party, all available data including the ambulance report, which evacuated him and medical reports from the Gaza hospitals. pic.twitter.com/9Yt0CD0NZX

— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) December 24, 2017

6/6 This was Hamas' response. There are those that are convinced that Israel is evil. These questions are irrelevant to them, they easily believe the rumors. Those that require truth in order to base their decisions and judgment should also ask Hamas, what are they hiding? pic.twitter.com/S767cLaC6C

— LTC (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) December 24, 2017

Is Ibrahim Abu Thuraya's death the latest Pallywood production?

Is Ibrahim Abu Thuraya being set up to be the new Muhammad al-Dura?

The 29 year old wheelchair bound Gazan was allegedly killed on December 15, in a clash with Israeli soldiers.

Some claim the protest was "peaceful".

Witnesses who accompanied Ibrahim at the time of his death claim he was shot directly in the head  by an Israeli sniper. Health Ministry spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf al-Kidr pronounced him dead at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital as a result of his wounds.

Ibrahim Abu Thuraya's death has the making of a Pallywood production

Is this how you carry someone with a head wound?

Where's the blood?  Wouldn't you expect blood from a fatal bullet wound to the head?

Jerusalem-based journalist Nasser Atta said he has spoken with many Palestinians, and they think the death of  Ibrahim Abu Thuraya “will be the beginning of the start of a third intifada – they compare him to Muhammad al-Dura killed during the Second Intifada.”

(Muhammed al Dura's death was a hoax)

Ismail Haniyeh certainly hopes this will be the start of something big.

Does this man look like he died from a direct gunshot to his head?

The IDF is currently investigating the death of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya.  It will  be very interesting to hear what they have to say.

UPDATE:
Honest Reporting also notices some discrepancies in the story of Abu Thuraya, particularly in how he became wheel-chair bound.

• AP reports that he “lost his legs in an Israeli airstrike during a 2008 war between Israel and Hamas. According to relatives, he was assisting in the evacuation of people after an earlier airstrike when he was struck.”
• “He was injured in 2008 by an Israeli helicopter that targeted him after he brought down the Israeli flag and raised the Palestinian flag along the border,” his brother Samir told AFP.”
• Le Monde (French) states that he was hit by shrapnel east of the Bourej refugee camp.
• He “was struck by an Israeli artillery shell. He lost both his legs and one of his eyes” in 2008 according to an APA Images photo caption.
• He was “bombed in his home”  according to CJ Werleman from MiddleEastEye.
• An Irish publication reporting on Irish Friends of Palestine donating an electric wheelchair claims “Ibrahim had been working on a trawler when it was hit by an Israeli missile in 2008. Eight people onboard were killed while Ibrahim lost both his legs below the hips.”

Josh Bornstein falls victim to elaborate hoax at the Times of Israel

More Pallywood from the haters of truth and the haters of Israel.

Josh Bornstein was just the victim of an elaborate hoax, perpetuated by haters, and  facilitated by a lack of  editorial control on the part of the Times of Israel.

The Times of Israel is an online Jerusalem-based newspaper founded in 2012 to document developments in Israel, the Middle East and around the Jewish world.   It has a "blog" feature, to allow activists and independent journalists to share their work.

From the website of the Times of Israel,

Posts are contributed by third parties. The opinions, facts and any media content in them are presented solely by the authors, and The Times of Israel assumes no responsibility for them. In case of abuse, report a post.

A racially charged blog post was published, using the name of an Australian attorney and writer, Josh Bornstein.  Bornstein  responded that he had never started a blog at Times of Israel, and the post was removed, but not before the backlash began.

The Times of Israel described the elaborate hoax, writing

The Blogs platform on the Times of Israel was breached in an elaborate manner by a malicious hoaxer who on Thursday posted a hateful and racist post.

This hoaxer, it turns out, had opened a blog on the website some weeks ago using the identity of Josh Bornstein, a respected Australian lawyer, appropriating Bornstein’s name, biography, photograph and taking steps to lend the blog credibility.

Times of Israel staff had no reason to suspect this was a hoax, also given that half a dozen posts were published on this blog in subsequent days, all on topic and perfectly reasonable. As we found out Thursday, these posts were taken from Bornstein’s articles elsewhere on the internet.

After establishing his credibility on The Blogs platform, the impostor Thursday published a blog post that was vile and disturbing in the extreme. Shortly after it was published, we removed this blog post and the entire blog, and began investigating what had transpired. The post had also been copied to an online archive with the obvious intent of causing maximum harm.

We are dismayed that The Times of Israel fell victim to such a malicious and hateful hoax. Needless to say, we are appalled that the Times of Israel’s blog platform was taken advantage of in this manner.

We sincerely apologize to everyone who was affected, directly or indirectly. Most especially, we apologize to Josh Bornstein.

That hasn't prevented anti-Israel activists from posting archived and screen-shot copies of the removed article in an effort to demonize the Jewish people, Israel, and the Times of Israel. Agitprop sites on Facebook and Twitter continue to post the removed article without explanation

 Sami the Bedouin uses hoax  article to demonize the Jewish people 

Glenn Greenwald perpetuates the lie

The falsified and  fraudulent Josh Bornstein blog post in the Times of Israel shows how far anti-Israel activists will go to demonize the nation state of the Jewish people. Its yet another example of Pallywood from the haters of truth and the haters of Israel.

UPDATE:
From the incomparable Elder of Ziyon- a neo-Nazi takes credit for the hoax.

Block the Boat Seattle: Hoax in process

Yes, there is another Block the boat protest at the port of Seattle scheduled for Nov. 29, at 4pm, and yes, they are promoting  this action with that universal symbol of brotherhood and good will, the Molotov cocktail.

The Zim Djibouti is currently anchored in Washington along with several other container vessels.

They are not delayed by any protesters- they are waiting for their turn, based on the posted schedule for unloading at the Port of Tacoma. Thats right, Tacoma, not Seattle at 5pm Nov. 29.

According to the Block the Boat organizers,  they are meeting at the port of Seattle at 4pm, yet the object of their affections, the Zim Djibouti isn't due into the Port of Seattle until Dec.1. So why  is Block the boat asking people to meet in Seattle and not Tacoma?

What we are seeing is the genesis of the Block the Boat hoax.

It'll go something like this:

The Zim Djibouti arrived in Washington  State Nov. 28. There was a protest at the Seattle port, preventing the Djibouti from unloading at Seattle until Dec. 1. The boat was therefore " delayed " by 48 hours, costing Zim thousands millions.   This will be followed by the usual back clapping self congratulatory  press releases  that we've been seeing for months.  Block the boat is "unstoppable".  BDS is on a "roll" .Its about union "solidarity"

And its all a lie.

From the President of ILWU local 23.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. Fauxtography as a Weapon to demonize Israel.

Its often been said that a lie can make it half way across the world before the truth even has a chance to put on its pants. The widespread and often deliberate spread of misinformation is backed up with fraudulent, faked or heavily edited photography. This practice became widespread during the second Lebanese war in 2006, and was dubbed "fauxtography" The IDF blog has featured a series on 5 Anti-IDF Lies Which Turned Viral.

This photo appeared on countless blogs- it was spread virally on Twitter and on Facebook. It was a fake.



The real photo, uncropped, showed street theater in Bahrain. Of the bloggers that spread the false photo- very few issued a retraction.



The IDF blog shows other notorious hoaxes, including strategically cropped Reuters photos from the Mavi Marmara, and the Mohammed Al Dura hoax- the blood libel that may have triggered the second intifada. It shows the recent Raja Abu Shaban hoax as well. The misinformation campaign started when a UN worker, Khulood Badawi, posted the photo on Twitter and claimed the three year old was killed during an IDF strike against Gaza. The young girl had actually died years earlier in a playground accident.

The IDF blog was not all-inclusive however. Photographic staging and manipulation was widely used during the second Lebanese war to sway public opinion and implicate Israel for targeting civilians. Remember this series of photos from Lebanon? Toys were removed from a suitcase and placed around a destroyed building- the photo was staged to give the illusion of a war crime.







And of course, there was our friend Zombie's brilliant expose of the Red Cross Ambulance Hoax.

From the IDF blog

The following photo, taken by Mahmoud Zayyat, was published by AFP on April 17, 2012


The photo caption is captioned:

“Palestinian refugees pose as Israeli soldiers arresting and beating a Palestinian activist during celebrations of Prisoners’ Day at the refugee camp of Ain el-Helweh near the coastal Lebanese city of Sidon on April 17, 2012 in solidarity with the 4,700 Palestinian inmates of Israeli jails. Some 1,200 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails have begun a hunger strike and another 2,300 are refusing food for one day, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Service (IPS) said.”

Yep. Posing as Israeli soldiers. No actually Israeli soldiers are involved. How many people looking at the photo would even realize that?

Fauxtography can take many forms:

1. Digitally altering photographs
2. Staging or posing scenes to be photographed and presented as real.
3. Giving false or misleading captions

The lesson? Looks can be misleading. The anti-Israel cru exist in a truth optional reality. Question everything.