Middle East. “The recording has surfaced.” Did the Israeli Prime Minister really “escape to the bunker”?

On the evening of October 1, Iran fired approximately 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. Reuters he reportedthat “alarm was announced throughout Israel and residents fled to shelters.” Almost an hour after the attack, the Israeli army announced that civilians could leave the shelters. One person was killed in the Iranian attack – a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who was directly hit by a falling part of a rocket in Jericho in the occupied West Bank. Israeli military saythat most of the missiles were shot down by air defenses, with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps saying that 90 percent of the rockets reportedly hit their targets, including “three military bases.”

Tehran announced that the raid was revenge for Israel's killing of the leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah and announced further attacks in the event of an armed response from Israel, but the authorities in Jerusalem have already announced retaliation.

On the same day, recordings began to multiply on the Internet showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu running, who – as the authors of the entries suggest – escapes to a bunker during the bombings. The recording appeared, among others, on Tomasz Szmydt's account on the X website. “Where is Nataniahu running so fast? Does anyone know?” – written. Szmydt was a judge at the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw, involved in a hate scandal at the Ministry of Justice. It was an organized hate activity of people gathered around Deputy Minister of Justice Łukasz Piebiak, aimed at judges who opposed the changes introduced by PiS in the courts. Szmydt fled to Belarus on May 6 this year and asked the authorities in Minsk for “care and protection”, and there he resigned as a judge. The National Prosecutor's Office charged him with espionage in absentia and issued an arrest warrant for him, and the District Court in Warsaw issued a European Arrest Warrant. At Konkret24 we described the online activity of this account and the fact that Szmydt's speeches are consistent with pro-Kremlin propaganda and what their purpose is. It is suspected that Szmydt's account is not run by him. The entry on Szmydt's profile had been viewed over 65,000 times by October 2.

Polish Internet users also published posts with similar content. “It came out recording of Netanyahu leaving the building before Iran attacked”; “Escape zionist rat Netanyahu to bunker during Iranian missile attacks”; “Netanyahu like a true leader, he doesn't bow to bullets. “Oh wait, let's run away to the bunker,” they wrote (we keep the original spelling).

We checked whether the recording was actually related to current events.

Well, no. The head of the Israeli government himself published this almost half-minute recording on December 13, 2021. In a post on Twitter (now X) he wrote: “I am always proud that I can run for you (citizens – ed.). [Nagranie] was taken half an hour ago in the Knesset.” Netanyahu enriched the recording with the song “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor, from the soundtrack of the movie “Rocky III”. The Prime Minister of Israel is accompanied during the run by at least three people: one of them is most likely a bodyguard (in a gray sweater) and the person who is filming. The third runner can only be seen for a moment.

Agency journalists Reutersciting Israeli mediaexplained that the Prime Minister was in a hurry at that time to take part in the vote on the bill, which was later adopted by just one vote. Therefore, this recording is not new, it has not surfaced and does not represent current events – Benjamin Netanyahu himself released it in December 2021.