Above photo: Israeli captives Louis Har (70) and Fernando Simon Marman (60). Al Mayadeen.
The truth behind the Israeli narrative of the IOF retrieving two captives from Rafah.
The reality of events that led to their release.
The Israeli occupation forces claimed on Monday that during a joint operation with Shin Bet and the Israeli Police, they were able to retrieve two Israeli captives held in Rafah by the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, while simultaneously massacring over 100 Palestinian civilians and injuring tens of others.
Following the retrieval of the captives, Israeli media and journalists narrated a web of tales praising the heroic but complex success of the operation, while Israeli generals and officials celebrated the accomplishment.
However, as leads to the narrative did not add up, two major questions were raised:
What happened during the Israeli operation? And were the two Israelis actually held captive by the Resistance?
Reliable sources revealed to Al Mayadeen the chronology of events of the operation on February 12, exposing the fallacy of the Israeli narrative as nothing more than an unraveling fictitious charade that unveils the severity of “Israel’s” turmoil and signifies just another tale added to the collection of lies the occupation has spread since October 7.
A Fabricated Charade
On October 7, after the destruction of the separation fence in Gaza, the collapse of Israeli defenses, military bases, and sites, and the Palestinian Resistance’s captivation of Israeli occupation soldiers, Palestinian civilians mobilized to Israeli settlements near the envelope and kidnapped settlers rendering the Resistance factions’ tallying process more difficult and less accurate.
The Resistance could not measure the tangible ramifications that unfolded immediately, especially amid the launching of intense and constant Israeli airstrikes, targeting the entirety of the Gaza Strip.
Taking this into consideration, members of a well-known family in Rafah kidnapped two Israeli settlers, Fernando Simon Marman (60) and Louis Har (70), who would later be claimed to have been retrieved by the IOF.
The captives were taken to a house in Rafah, where the leader of the family clan had put them under the protection of his brother and cousins. They were tasked with providing them with food and the necessary medical care. To preserve their protection, the members had been moving them from location to location, while “Israel” carried out its military offensive in Gaza.
However, when the leader was martyred in Khan Younis in January, the three members became the sole protectors of the captives, with no responsible director available to refer to. Therefore, the clan acted on their own diligence and continued moving Marman and Har, the Israeli captives, until they finally settled in a house in the Shaboura refugee camp, according to Al Mayadeen’s sources.
Since the members acted on their own will and were independent of an organized association, Louis Har, one of the captives, was able to manipulate the members and bribe them with an escape out of Gaza and provide them with whatever requests they made, alleging that his daughter owned a giant Israeli company that would be able to cement his promises. The Palestinian men were eventually convinced and called Har’s daughter.
Har’s daughter then established a channel of communication with the three men and constantly conducted calls that were monitored by Israeli intelligence. To further gain their trust, Har’s daughter sent the three men’s relatives in London and Sweden monetary sums and offered that they accompany the captives back to the occupied territories, claiming she would guarantee their safety, information obtained by Al Mayadeen’s sources revealed.
However, her offer was rejected, but a deal was made by which the woman would give the members an already-agreed-on monetary sum in exchange for the release of the captives, and a promise that the men could escape Gaza to Egypt, then to a European country.
Terms of the deal
Al Mayadeen’s sources detailed that the deal brokered between the men and the captive’s daughter, tailored and monitored by the Israeli occupation intelligence forces, included the transportation of the captives to the vicinity of the Gaza envelope, where Har’s daughter claimed would be stationed at a location hidden from Israeli occupation forces.
As per the deal, one of the men was supposed to go to a location in Rafah’s vicinity, after it was besieged from all sides, to meet the captive’s daughter and obtain the sum. Once that was done, his relatives would be called to confirm the acquisition of the money, and to greenlight their move to another location where the captives would be released after he leaves with the money.
Three dates were set to complete the deal, however, the captive’s daughter would call ahead of time to delay based on personal security concerns and fears, until one last definitive date would be set on February 12 at 1 a.m.
A deception operation
When the first man arrived at the agreed location to meet the captive’s daughter, the brutal Israeli military operation was launched in Rafah, after Israeli intelligence, through monitoring the calls, pinpointed the location of the house where Har and Marman were being held and the number of people residing there.
In an act of deception, the Israeli military operation targeted all sides of Rafah, except the near vicinity of the house. Israeli occupation soldiers then went into the house and retrieved the captives. The man who had left to meet the captive’s daughter is speculated to have been either detained or killed, which rebuts the Israeli claims of concocting a “secret” operation that led them to the house where the captives had been and “the confrontation against armed men inside the apartment and neighboring buildings throughout the operation.”
Therefore, based on the obtained information, the occupation deliberated the fabrication of a “complex and cohesive operation” to falsely promote a major accomplishment for the feeble occupation “army” that has failed to retrieve one single captive in its four-month and still ongoing military offensive on Gaza. It also served to polish Benjamin Netanyahu‘s image as settlers and captives’ families protested against him and his policies, specifically after several settlers were killed by reckless and vicious IOF bombing in Gaza.