General Aloni appeared at an Israeli army briefing on Sunday, an appearance that unofficially denied kidnapping rumors that had been circulating on social media since Saturday. “Urgent – Israeli General Nimrod Aloni has been captured”, we can read on a post seen more than 2.7 million times on X (formerly Twitter). The rumor also spread on TikTok and Facebook.
Internet users claimed that the man had been kidnapped by Hamas, which launched a large-scale attack on Israel on Saturday morning. Some posts were accompanied by a photo showing a man in underwear, framed by two men in fatigues. The photo was shown as proof of the kidnapping.
The rumor appears to have started from a statement by Saleh al-Arouri, one of the leaders of Hamas, who asserted to the Al-Jazeera channel that “senior officers” had been taken prisoner after Saturday’s attacks on Israel.
FAKE OFF
The Israeli army posted Sunday photos and a video of a briefing in which the general participated. We can see Nimrod Aloni speaking from the 10th second:
The false news of this kidnapping was spread in several languages, including English, Arabic and Russian. If this falsehood had such an impact, it is probably because the general was commander of the Gaza division for two years, between 2020 and 2022. He is now in charge of military colleges.
The latest results of hostilities show 700 Israeli deaths and 413 Palestinians.