IDF soldier prays before entering battle
IDF soldier prays before entering battleIsrael News Photo: IDF

The Hamas terrorist organization announced Sunday that it had kidnapped two Israeli soldiers in the first stage of the ground invasion of IDF troops into Gaza.

The statement, made to foreign television stations, is totally untrue, according to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, as was the statement Saturday night that 10 IDF soldiers had been killed in the first assault.

Propanganda and disinformation is an inherent part of the psychological warfare used by Hamas to weaken the Israeli resolve, said Israeli officials. It is gamble used in the hope that news services will pick up the report and disseminate it before the truth becomes known. The goal is to confuse and frighten the Israeli readers and break their determination to continue the operation.

The Reuters news agency apparently did not bother to check the facts before its initial publication of the Hamas statement, nor did it include a counter-statement from the IDF confirming or denying the veracity of the claim.

During the 2006 Second Lebanon War, a Reuters staffer was caught faking a photograph of damage from IDF bombing in a Beirut suburb to make it appear as though Israel has massacred the neighborhood instead of using pinpoint surgical strikes as it had. The staff member was reportedly dismissed.

Kidnapping Threats from Hamas

Damascus-based Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal said a statement broadcast Friday on the Arabic-language Al Jazeera satellite TV network that Israel would face a "black fate" if it proceeded to enter Gaza with ground forces.

Mashaal threatened to turn Gaza into "an IDF cemetery" if IDF forces entered the region, and said terrorists would kidnap "a second, third, and fourth Gilad Shalit."

Operatives from three related Gaza terror groups kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid near the Kerem Shalom Crossing on June 25, 2006. Two other soldiers were killed and a fourth was severely wounded in the attack. Shalit has remained in Gaza in enemy hands.