Channel 12 News military correspondent Nir Dvori reacted to the spread of rumors and conspiracy theories online following the massive Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel yesterday.
Claims have been spread on social media that elements in the security and intelligence forces betrayed the State and people of Israel and that the intelligence systems were disabled prior to the attack by a cyber-attack, allowing the Hamas onslaught to catch Israel by surprise.
"It is important to debunk two rumors this morning that are consuming social media and doing enormous damage to the security system," said Dvori, "First of all, the whole matter of the conspiracy about how this incident of the infiltration into Israeli territory happened - there was no cyber attack here that disrupted the systems."
"Yes, there was an attack on the cameras here," he explained, "and then in many cases, the observers were "blind" to the actions that happened at the fence."
Addressing the rumors that treason occurred and Hamas received intelligence that allowed it to carry out the assault that way, Dvori said: "This is completely fake news - there was and has never been and there is no such occurrence at all. The last thing we need now is this severe damage to the morale of those who are now fighting in the field."
Channel 14 News anchor Erel Segal also dismissed the conspiracy theories and blamed their spread on Iranian misinformation. "The Iranians are spreading conspiracy theories about treason from within Israel through their fake users. This is a dangerous lie and psychological warfare."