Hezbollah strike did not kill IDF chief Herzi Halevi
The same claim circulated elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube, and Rumble — including in Spanish, French, Arabic, Turkish, Italian, Indonesian and Korean. Pakistan’s GTV News also reported the unconfirmed online rumors.
Hezbollah’s attack on the Israeli base near the town of Binyamina was the deadliest such assault since Israel stepped up its offensive against the Iran-backed group in late September 2024.
Israel says it wants to push back Hezbollah to secure its northern boundary and allow tens of thousands of people displaced by rocket fire since last year to return home safely.
Hezbollah says its strikes are in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas, which attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. The International Organization for Migration has verified 690,000 displaced people in Lebanon.
Hamas’s attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures. The number includes hostages killed in captivity.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed 42,289 people, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The United Nations has described the figures as reliable.
Despite posts claiming he died, Halevi traveled to visit the Binyamina training base, which was housing members of Israel’s Golani brigade, on October 14 — hours after the Hezbollah drone strike.
“We are at war, and an attack on a training base on the home front is difficult and the results are painful,” he told soldiers during the visit.
Footage and images taken by the IDF show Halevi walking around the site with other members of the country’s military (archived here and here).
The IDF also posted a statement on X confirming the number of soldiers killed in the attack and asking internet users to stop speculating about their names (archived here).
AFP has debunked other claims about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here.
