Illy Pe’ery writes:

In October 2023, Gili was called up for reserve duty in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and assigned to the Northern Command. In the days following Hamas’ attacks, while public attention in Israel was fixed on the devastation in the south, Hezbollah began launching rockets and anti-tank missiles toward northern Israel.

“We were working 12-hour shifts in an underground operations room, while soldiers in outposts were terrified, but we couldn’t convey that the north was on fire,” she recalled. “We downplayed the northern front to avoid causing public panic, even though there were constant launches. People weren’t dying like in the south, but I remember feeling we were creating an inaccurate picture: We showed far more strength than vulnerability.”

The experience left Gili, who requested to use a pseudonym, questioning the very system she had served for years. “It was always easy to repeat that ‘The IDF is prepared for any scenario,’” she continued. “Who were we to question it? But in reality, it was bullshit.

“You can see it now with Iran, too: The focus is almost entirely on the army’s overwhelming power, and not much beyond that,” she explained. “It doesn’t reassure me when I’m told how hard the IDF is striking or about air superiority over Tehran. At the end of the day, ballistic missiles are still being fired at us, and there’s no normal routine. There are air defense systems, but for every 10 successful interceptions, there are also direct hits.”

Asked whom she believes today, Gili answered without hesitation: “No one. Not what the IDF Spokesperson says, and not the military correspondents either. They’re mouthpieces.”

Speaking to the Israeli investigative outlet The Hottest Place in Hell, soldiers in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and military correspondents for Israeli publications pointed to a systematic pattern: an obsessive drive to control the public discourse, preferential treatment for “convenient” journalists while sidelining and punishing critical ones, and, above all, an organizational culture of deception. [Continue reading…]