Recently, pro-Israel social media users circulated a suicide letter claimed to have been penned by a survivor of the October 7 Nova music festival. This suicide note went viral online, with several prominent figures expressing sympathy for its anonymous author. The letter was later exposed as a hoax by a reporter from a Hebrew-language channel.
Alleged Suicide Letter by Claimed Witness of Hamas Sexual Violence
A social media post falsely claimed that a young man, who allegedly survived Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on the southern Israel music festival on October 7, had "committed suicide," with his family sharing his claimed suicide note. The letter recounted a traumatic experience at the festival, including claims that his girlfriend was brutally assaulted and that he felt guilty for being unable to help her.
Several social media users expressed sympathy on social media for the author of the anonymous letter.
The seemingly tragic short story titled “I’m Sorry I Didn’t Save You” was anonymously posted in a Nova Survivors Facebook group, according to Israeli media reports, and was later widely circulated.
Jewish News Syndicate published the alleged suicide note on X in four tweets, under the main caption, “Tragic Final Words: Suicide letter from Nova Survivor published by family to bring awareness to the horrors he experienced on Oct. 7th, including watching a sadistic rape by Hamas terrorists.”
Other social media users shared the alleged suicide story to elicit sympathy from their followers and show support for the supposed victim. They circulated the note with various eye-catching designs, adding further claims to the already unfounded note.
Israeli Channel 13 Reporter Debunks the Hoax
Israeli media outlet Channel 13 debunked the letter as a fabrication during a Wednesday night program. Channel 13 reporter Adam Shafir wrote on X: “A story that ran in recent days about a Nova survivor who saw horrors and committed suicide, did not leave a single dry eye. After trying to reach the family, to tell their story - the search turned into an investigation.”
The hoax unraveled when Israeli media attempted to contact and interview the supposed victim's family. Shafir revealed that the investigation proved the letter to be “a complete fake.”
Hen Mazzig, an Israeli writer affiliated with the Israeli propaganda organization known as the Tel Aviv Institute, contributed to the spread of the fake story by translating it into English.
On Thursday, Mazzig took to X to take responsibility for disseminating disinformation after deleting his initial post. He admitted that, despite being unable to verify the letter writer's identity, he shared the message because reading the fake letter was "soul-crushing" for him.
German Ambassador to Israel Admits Circulating the Hoax
The German ambassador in Tel Aviv has admitted that he shared fabricated Israeli atrocity propaganda aimed at supporting Israel's debunked claims of mass rapes by Palestinian fighters on October 7, 2023.
“I regret having believed – like so many others – that that suicide letter was real. It turns out it was a fake,” Ambassador Steffen Seibert posted on X on Thursday. “I find this an appalling act given that so many real lives were taken at the Nova festival, so many crimes committed, so many souls destroyed.”
U.N. Report: No Conclusive Evidence of Sexual Violence on 7 October
In March 2024, the U.N. announced that it had completed its mission in Israel to investigate claims of sexual violence by Hamas fighters during the October 7 Operation, as well as reports of sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.
A team of experts, led by U.N. Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten, spent 17 days in Israel and Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, conducting meetings, confidential interviews, and reviewing hours of video footage and thousands of images.
The U.N. report indicated that "At least two allegations of sexual violence widely repeated in the media were unfounded due to either new superseding information or inconsistency in the facts gathered."
Previously, Misbar's investigative team reported how media distorted the United Nations report, which refuted Israeli allegations of sexual violence on October 7.
For instance, a headline from The New York Times claimed that the U.N. report revealed “evidence of sexual assault in Hamas-led attack on Israel,” despite the U.N. stating that its team “believes that the true extent of sexual violence committed during the October 7 attacks and their aftermath may take months or years to emerge and may never be fully known.”
Reports Reveal Sexual Assault and Rape of Palestinian Prisoners by Israeli Soldiers
According to a United Nations report from August 5, allegations of torture and sexual violence in Israel’s Sde Teiman prison are grossly illegal, but they represent only the tip of the iceberg.
The experts received substantiated reports of widespread abuse, torture, sexual assault, and rape amid atrocious and inhumane conditions, with at least 53 Palestinians reportedly dying as a result over the past 10 months.
On August 8, a video surfaced showing the gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner by guards at the Sde Teiman detention facility in the Negev desert, southern Israel. The attack was reportedly so brutal that the victim was transferred to the hospital.
Furthermore, a report released by B’Tselem, a Jerusalem-based Israeli human rights group, reported the “repeated use of sexual violence, in varying degrees of severity, by soldiers or prison guards against Palestinian detainees as an additional punitive measure."
Since October 7, Israeli barbaric war has claimed the lives of at least 40,602 people and injured 93,855 others.
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Media Distorts a U.N. Report Refuting Israeli Allegations of Sexual Violence on October 7
Western Media Ignores a U.N. Report on Sexual Violence Committed by Israeli Forces
