Assessing Claims That an IDF Helicopter Fired on and Killed Israelis on October 7

A news story relied on one unnamed source and the Israeli police have disputed it.

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An illuminated tribute to those killed, injured and traumatised at the Nova music festival adorns Kochav HaYam complex on November 19, 2023, in Caesarea, Israel. According to Israeli authorities, 364 people were killed at the Nova music festival near Kibbutz Re'im on October 7, during a surprise invasion by Hamas militants who had crossed over from the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Allegations that an Israeli military helicopter killed civilians at the Nova music festival last month while attempting to kill Hamas terrorists have been revived in recent days following a new story in the Israeli press. The claims have notably been forwarded in a tweet from Washington Post investigative reporter Evan Hill, which was then screenshotted and shared in a viral Instagram post by Shaun King, a well-known American activist and writer.

“An Israeli police investigation has found that an IDF helicopter firing at Hamas fighters at the desert rave site also hit civilians, Haaretz reports,” Hill’s tweet says. “There is also a ‘growing assessment’ that Hamas didn’t know about the desert rave in advance.” King takes his own conclusions further. “Israeli police now admit that countless Israelis were murdered by ISRAEL on October 7th,” he writes.

A second viral Instagram post by Palestinian-American lawyer Ali Awad shows a screenshot of an article by The Cradle with a headline reading “Israel admits it killed its own at Nova music festival.”

The posts refer to a story published on November 18 by Haaretz, an Israeli publication, detailing the findings of a police investigation into the Nova music festival massacre. The story reports that Israeli police investigators determined that Hamas terrorists were not aware of the music festival in advance of their attacks. “According to a police source,”  the story reads, “the investigation also indicates that an IDF combat helicopter that arrived to the scene and fired at terrorists there apparently also hit some festival participants.”

This claim is based on a single unnamed source, however, and a statement from the Israel police strongly denied the assertions in the Haaretz story. The officials’ statement said the investigation focused only on the police response, and therefore did not make any assessments related to IDF activity at the Nova festival. “Contrary to the publication, the police investigation does not refer to the activity of the IDF forces, and therefore no indication was given of any harm to civilians caused by any aerial activity at the site,” a member of the Israel Police Spokesperson Unit said to The Dispatch Fact Check in a statement. “Particularly at this time, we call on the media to show responsibility in their reporting, and to base their journalism on official sources only,” the statement continues. An IDF spokesperson provided the same police statement when asked for comment.

The claim by the unnamed source in the Haaretz article that an IDF helicopter fired on Israelis cannot be independently verified but the claims by Shaun King and Ali Awad go well beyond what that source said. Israel has not admitted to killing “countless” Israelis.

Allegations that IDF forces killed festival-goers did not originate with the Haaretz story, but the claims there have been used to advance a number of pre-existing theories. A number of social media accounts have for weeks been sharing “leaked footage” of an IDF helicopter supposedly firing upon Israeli civilians, using this information as evidence that Israel has repeatedly lied about the events of October 7. Jackson Hinkle, a popular social media influencer known for posting misinformation and anti-Israel content, recently reposted this footage suggesting it confirmed the accusations.

This footage was not leaked, however, and instead originates from an October 9 post on X by the IDF showing attacks by Israel’s air force on Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

GeoConfirmed, an open source intelligence group specializing in geolocation, later determined that the footage was not related to the Nova festival, and an in-depth fact check published on November 17 by PolitiFact labeled the claims surrounding the footage as false.

If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.

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  1. Avatar photo
    SandyG

    Alex, this is the first TD Fact Check I've read, only because it was noted in today's TMD. I love fact-checking. I recently took a course on lateral reading at Stanford which is based on what fact checkers do. I also love identifying mis/dis info (got that term from Ciarán O’Connor, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue).

    I don't see your articles listed on the TD newsletters page. If it were there, I would subscribe.

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      Ben Connelly

      You have go to the Fact Check or Latest (and scroll through all the articles in sequential order).

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  2. Cegoodman85

    Thanks for this.

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    Philbnichols

    Thanks, Alex

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    Aylene Wright

    Thanks for tackling yet another question that doesn't have a definite truth claim. I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually turned out that some Israeli civilians were caught in the crossfire after the IDF finally did respond to the terrorist attack.

    But that scenario isn't what the anti-Israel social media people are pushing, but rather a conspiratorial idea that the entire 10/7 attack was a false flag operation to justify "the genocide of Palestinians". Or that at the very least, the Netanyahu administration let the attack go on, out of such nefarious motives, or murdered at least some of the victims to shut them up.

    Now, I have seen multiple references by such conspiracy theorists to "the Hannibal protocol" or "Hannibal directive". I have been afraid to look this up for fear this would lead me to some very sketchy sites. But it seems to refer to some supposed decree that allows the IDF to murder Israelis for the Greater Good. I would appreciate some additional information on that.

    I have also seen some anti-Israel people claim that all the way back in the 1940s, there actually were some covert false flag Israeli operations to attack Jews in Middle Eastern countries, to scare them into emigrating to Israel. Even some mostly Israeli friendly sites, have conceded that such operations did occur.

    Although I am sure not all conspiracy theories on what Israel is supposedly doing now, are based on an assumption that they did something similar decades ago, and so that means they must be still doing it, I do get the impression that's behind many of them.

    Similar to when a lot of people thought the US government had deliberately allowed the levies to fail and let New Orleans flood from Hurricane Katrina, because they indeed HAD done exactly that in a prior hurricane.

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    1. John Matthew IV

      The Hannibal Directive is interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal_Directive

      It is no longer in force.

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        Aylene Wright

        Thanks. So the Hannibal Directive, even if interpreted in the most sensational way, may have authorized the killing of IDF soldiers who were abducted by the enemy, but it had nothing to do with civilians. And there's some ambiguity as to whether it actually was an order to deliberately kill the soldier as a better fate than to actually be captured, or merely one that prioritized stopping the abduction, even if that resulted in the death of the soldier being abducted.

        However, it occurs to me that most people who criticize Israel, actually see no moral difference between the deaths of Palestinian civilians as collateral damage, and Hamas deliberately targeting civilians for death. So they would probably see no difference between the two versions of the Directive, either.

        And I guess some people citing the Hannibal directive may only be claiming "Israel has authorized the military killing its own in the past, so who's to say they wouldn't eventually let the military kill civilians, too?" Not claiming that the Directive itself, actually authorized killing Israeli civilians.

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        1. John Matthew IV

          It would be great to find someone who can explain the Hannibal Directive better than Wikipedia. I got the impression that it was acceptable for IDF soldiers to be killed as part of an operation if it was for the greater good. Or that the IDF would not risk all to rescue one person. But I have no idea of the accuracy of these thoughts. And so many are very quick to criticize Israel on anything and everything you have to be very careful what you read and where. Which makes Alex's fact checks indespensible.

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            Alex Demas vertical-nib Author

            I’ll look into doing a piece on the Hannibal Directive. Could make for an interesting explainer.

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    2. Russell Kirk

      "I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually turned out that some Israeli civilians were caught in the crossfire after the IDF finally did respond to the terrorist attack."

      That's plausible. Last week, I asked TD to tackle this question due to some absurd allegations I've read, such as this one: "The {Hamas attack} was the equivalent of a prison break-out in Gaza, which killed about 1200 - up to 50% of which were killed by the IDF themselves"

      This sort of nonsense is gaining momentum in various circles.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Aylene Wright

        Although many conservative Jews have criticized Haaretz as basically irresponsibly, or even deliberately, providing grist for the conspiracy mill, I get the impression the editorial policy is actually that elusive "critical of Israel but not negating its right to exist". It's not quite IfNotNow.

        They also recently printed an epic takedown of an infamous anti-Zionist, Max Blumenthal, who has made some of these preposterous "most of the people killed on 10/7 were actually killed by the IDF" claims.

        https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-27/ty-article-opinion/exposing-max-blumenthals-deceptive-claim-israel-is-responsible-for-most-october-7-victims/0000018c-102f-d65f-a7dd-f0ff7b550000

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        1. Russell Kirk

          Thanks for the link, it's greatly appreciated. Another Hamas apologist who has been in the news a lot, lately, is Norman Finkelstein. He's trotted out as an "objective" source. But in 2008, he admitted during an infamous debate at Oxford, that Israel does not have a right to exist. It seems he changed his mind in mid-debate.

          https://www.nationalreview.com/media-blog/norman-finkelstein-votes-against-himself-honderich-says-murdering-israelis-moral/

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  5. Philebus

    Thank you, Alex. It's probably not in your job description, but it would be nice if there was a little sunlight brought to characters like Jackson Hinkle (among others). Then again, I suppose there is no such thing as bad publicity - never mind.

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