On TikTok, war is a game. During the ground invasion of the Gaza Strip in late October, an unknown number of Israeli soldiers entered with a cell phone in their pockets. With them, some can be seen on fashionable social networks making fun of the destruction in Gaza, dedicating controlled explosions to a daughter, robbing houses abandoned by Palestinians or playing with a shovel. These are dozens of videos – some of which were able to verify their location and others the authenticity of the profile – that were recorded by the soldiers themselves in Gaza, mostly men between the ages of 18 and 40.
One of the trends, as a sequence whose reproduction is becoming fashionable is called in the language of social networks, is to show the process of loading a projectile into a tank and firing it. Another option is to add trance music and the words “2-3, sha-ger” to a video. It is the order given to the operator of a military drone to bomb, with the syllables separated so that it is clear. It started with a video from the Israeli army that sparked curiosity, was viewed more than a million times, and eventually grew into a multifaceted viral expression.
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Another trend is filming yourself from inside an armored vehicle or a bulldozer. Sometimes with a funny background voice where someone says they will work in a 4×4 to avoid traffic jams. Firstly, when demolishing a building; another picks up a vehicle in front, accompanied by the comment: “I’ve lost count of the cars I’ve deleted.”
The recordings convey the change in mood in the country since the massive Hamas attack on October 7th. Their song is often “Harbu Darbu,” the number one reproduction in the country and with phrases like “Another.”
Soldiers are also seen playing with objects apparently found in houses: spinning on children's bicycles or touching a ball with a beach tennis racket, in response to a message about Israeli soldiers' fears of invading Gaza . In another video, a soldier holds a silver pendant while the videographer tells the couple that a gift from Gaza is waiting for them. “Made in Gaza” – made in Gaza, in English – responds to the other, imitating the Arabic accent.
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Sarcasm and messages to loved ones
Some videos mock the destruction in the Gaza Strip, where more than half of the buildings were damaged and entire neighborhoods were destroyed, especially in the north. In one, confirmed on Rashid Street in Gaza City, you can see a barely standing building and a voice mocking the benefits of living in a building through which air comes in from all four directions. Another, with verified coordinates and idyllic music in the background, shows a row of damaged beachfront properties with the message: “A free hotel in Gaza.”
Two soldiers simulate a real estate ad for people without public housing in Israel. “Now there is a bit of explosions and chaos, but here we fear there will be new terrain soon […] “With God’s help, there will soon be an apartment for you here too,” says one of them. In another comic recreation, you ask for the nearest branch of Aroma, the largest coffee shop chain. You will receive instructions and a warning that it doesn't open until 9am. Then it shows the desolate landscape of the road.
There is more. Like the one that takes place in the Supreme Court (later blown up by the troops) and is accompanied by the message: “There will be no negotiations until further notice.” Or the one that ironically sings the song “It was my house” in a destroyed apartment . A soldier identifying himself at Al-Shifa Hospital in the capital complains in front of a broken digital stand, one of those providing the appointment number, that he cannot make an appointment to have his teeth cleaned. Or a play on words: “Do you know why Hamas only has choirs?” – “Because there is no batim,” the word that means both verses and houses in Hebrew.
In an apartment, a soldier protests because two others broke a candle, remembering that “we have to take care of the house.” He then turns the phone over to show that everything is half in ruins. In one of the most recent images, another soldier can be seen smashing children's gifts and stationery onto the floor on the shelves of a shop in Jabalia, the refugee camp in northern Gaza. He says promotional prices between the laughter of the person recording him.
Some are not being sarcastic but are using the presence in Gaza to send messages to their loved ones. Like the one who dedicates the controlled explosion of a building to his daughter because she turns two, or the one who proposes to his girlfriend to the applause of others “in the heart of Gaza,” as the message accompanying the picture says says.
There is a final type that is more ideological than burlesque. They are messages for the re-establishment of Gush Katif, the settlement bloc of 8,000 settlers that existed in Gaza shortly after its capture in the Six-Day War in 1967 until Ariel Sharon's government ordered its evacuation in 2005. He supports him. 22% of According to a poll, this is a clear dream of some ministers in the current executive branch, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe have made it clear that “it is not realistic”. Biden, that would be “a big mistake.”
That's why in one of the videos, a soldier in front of the camera sends a message to Netanyahu: “Listen, Bibi: We have found [a los habitantes de Gaza], we expel and settle down.” In another, around 15 soldiers sing “We will return” to the sound of guitar. In a third, a soldier erases the Arabic words, apparently from a school, written in chalk on the blackboard to hang an orange ribbon, the color of the movement against the evacuation of Gush Katif.
In collaboration with Oscar Gutierrez.
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