Instagram posts shared by on-duty soldiers in the IDF revealed unreported insights from behind the frontlines of the deadly, weekly confrontations with Palestinians along the Israel-Gaza border during the Great March of Return.
An investigation by RT Digital revealed a somewhat indisciplined attitude adopted by uniformed Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers while violent confrontations raged nearby at the border with Gaza.
Public videos shared on Instagram showed young IDF soldiers pretending to defecate live rounds of ammunition or singing a song with the lyrics “we want some pu*sy.” Other videos showed IDF soldiers engaged in various acts of adolescent behavior while armed.
The investigation was carried out by searching geolocation points along the Gaza border while identifying various Israeli military bases. Several areas along the border between Israel and Gaza were hotspots of activity on Instagram, with all video content easy to discover and publically available.
Since the Trump Administration's decision in February to relocate the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, renewed tensions have crackled as the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians continues.
A billowing smokescreen from burning tires has set the backdrop to the Great Return March, a series of weekly protests leading up to the 70th anniversary of the Nakba or ‘catastrophe,’ when Palestinians mourn the establishment of the Israeli state, which forced hundreds of thousands to flee their ancestral homes.
RT Digital’s investigation provides stark contrast from the scenes of violence along the frontlines across the border with Gaza where at least 103 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF since the protests began six weeks ago.
RT Digital contacted the IDF for comment, but has yet to receive a response.
With Trump’s decision to relocate the US embassy, the conflict entered a new phase - which has been covered in its entirety by RT Digital through verified, raw user-generated content from the frontlines, discovered through monitoring of social media activity from both sides of the border.