Adam on The Bulwark

[Adam]

So, I took a look at the article you're linking. I can read Hebrew, so I just read it, but since I'm sure you won't take what I'm about to say on faith, you can double check me with some Hebrew translators. I personally recommend doitinhebrew, reachable here https://www.doitinhebrew.com/Translate/default.aspx?kb=IL%20Hebrew%20Phonetic

but some decent alternatives are Milog https://milog.co.il/ morfix https://www.morfix.co.il/ or Lexilogos as a dictionary ssearcher. https://www.lexilogos.com/english/hebrew_modern_dictionary.htm

Quite simply, the article does not say what you are claiming it does. The headline is about how Hamas didn't know about the music festival in advance, and must have made an on-the-fly adjustment to their plan of attack to hit it. Most of the article is bringing up facts pertaining to this conclusion, stuff like how they approached from route 232, and not from the direct route from the Gaza fence, or a claimed video from a body camera taken off one of the Hamas fighters showing him interrogating someone asking for directions to get to the music festival.

There is, however, one sentence which tangentially addresses your point. It says as follows

לדברי גורם במשטרה, מתחקיר של האירוע עולה גם כי מסוק קרב של צה"ל שהגיע למקום מבסיס רמת דוד ירה לעבר המחבלים וככל הנראה פגע גם בכמה מהחוגגים ששהו במקום.

In English, that would be 'according to the words of a source from the police, an investigation revealed a Tzahal (IDF) helicopter that arrived at the scene from Ramat David base. He fired at the terrorists and also hit some partygoers who were nearby.'

The verb that most closely touches on your claim is פגע. It is a word that means harmed or hurt, but is more often used to talk about emotional injuries or to insult. You do not see words like הרג 'kill' רצח 'murder' שחט 'slaughter'. You don't even see הכה, which is also to hit and carries a much more fatal connotation than other words also meaning hitting like סטירה or הרואין. You do see נהרגו with the הרג root later, when talking about the overall death toll caused by Hamas, so it's not like our article writer doesn't know the word.

There is nothing in there claiming that the Israeli helicopter killed a festival goer. At most it is a plausible inference from a notion that someone was hit by fire aimed at המחבלים. There is certainly nothing suggesting that the original tweeter, claiming it was deliberate murder, is anywhere close to being accurate.

I figure there are two possibilities here. Either

A) You had no idea what the article actually said, saw someone claiming it proved that the Israelis admitted that the IDF killed their own people and just ran with it because it fits your preconceptions

Or

B) You do have enough Hebrew skills or just ran it through a translator, found out what it actually said, and then decided to lie about it to score internet points.

I suppose I'm interested in a sort of academic sense, but in a practical one it doesn't really matter. The notion that this is grounds for a retraction or apology is absurd, and your 'source' doesn't say anything close to what you're claiming it has. I thnk retractions are cowardly, but I think an admission from you as to what your motives are for quoting an article that doesn't actually support your claim is warranted.