MK Tally Gotliv posted on Wednesday that a tank commander was dismissed from the IDF, but retracted it a few hours later when she discovered that it was false news.
Gotliv tweeted: "The Chief of Staff in yet another surreal tribute to the 'uninvolved' Gazans who mock Israel and this time dismissing a tank commander who ran over the 'I❤️Gaza' sign, because he believes that this is not in the IDF’s spirit."
Gotliv’s post was in response to a video clip showing an IDF tank running over the sign at the Rafah crossing. Gotliv added: "Honorable Sir, this is an act that matches the humiliation of the Gazan enemy! This is the 'uninvolved population,' who helps hide living and dead hostages. It matches the enemy’s language, that the sign is like a statement of, 'We are here'! I'm sick of it."
She added and attacked: "I was informed by a reliable source that taking revenge on the enemy and fighting without mercy are also not principles of fighting according to the IDF. Do you understand? This basically explains Hamas's sense of victory. Because we must break the spirit of the enemy. The dismissal of the tank commander contributes to and strengthens Hamas' sense of victory and mocking of Israel."
After she discovered that this was fake news published by a reader, Gotliv responded: "I found out that the post about the dismissal of the tank commander is not true and I apologize. The fact that I was not surprised by this, if it was true, is very sad. Revenge and fighting without mercy are not fighting values, as I was personally told by a senior IDF official. This is the essence of our lack of understanding of the identity of the cruel enemy we face and the language he understands."
She added: "We saw the failure in understanding the enemy, when the IDF dismissed soldiers who chanted the ‘Shema Yisrael’ prayer in a mosque, which was a hiding place for weapons, and when our soldiers were ordered to erase graffiti saying ‘Am Yisrael Chai,’ in front of the mocking enemy, and when soldiers were required to clean houses where they slept ... this is a chain of sad decisions that gave me the feeling that the army is led by a greater concern for the honor of the enemy, than the honor of our brave soldiers."
The reader who posted the fake news responded saying that it is, "a sarcastic tweet. Sorry if anyone was hurt and feels they were misled. But I will still not delete it, because the very fact that it seems completely real to many people says a lot about the low moral level to which the top brass of the IDF has deteriorated."