BEIRUT: A clip which appears to show an Israeli Defense Force soldier celebrating his daughter’s second birthday by detonating a house in Gaza went viral across websites and social media on Saturday.
“I dedicate this explosion to my daughter ‘princess Ayala’ on her birthday as she turns two today,” the IDF soldier is heard saying in Hebrew in the 43-second undated, unverified video that was shared and posted thousands of times by Internet users.
Different media outlets, in Arabic and English, reported the soldier had obtained a permission from the Israeli army before he blew up a Palestinian family’s home, an entire building, in Gaza.
“I miss you,” he is also heard as telling his daughter.
In the video, several IDF servicemen are seen surrounding the unnamed soldier while he gives “directions” to detonate the building.
The clip shows more than four IDF members surrounding the soldier who knelt down to the ground, picked up a walkie talkie phone and said: “Here is the reception station … in 10 seconds.”
All the soldiers start the countdown in Hebrew, and when they reach zero, a loud blast is heard while the video shows a building being detonated in the background.
The footage has prompted condemnation and criticism online as it happened during the ongoing war between IDF and Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip.
An X user said: “While the pathetic shameless world watches helplessly! Criminals!”
Another wrote: “Israel is a terrorist state.”
IDF soldier celebrates daughter’s 2nd birthday by detonating Gaza building
https://arab.news/y2k5g
IDF soldier celebrates daughter’s 2nd birthday by detonating Gaza building
- ‘I dedicate this explosion to my daughter ‘princess Ayala’ on her birthday as she turns two today,’ IDF soldier heard saying in clip
- Building was reportedly home to Palestinian family
Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe
RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.
Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.
