Thomas Wictor

The second I heard that Ismail Bakr, Mohammed Bakr, Ahed Bakr, and Zakaria Bakr were reported killed on July 16, 2014, I knew that the truth was not being told. Therefore I invested thousands of irreplaceable hours of my life trying to figure out what happened. On June 11, 2015, the Israeli Military Advocate General (MAG) Corps concluded that the IDF accidentally killed the four boys. I’ve avoided any public commentary about the finding, even though I know much more about it than people think. My plan was to make a twenty-minute documentary that presents the evidence of this incident being a Hamas deception. However, that may not be possible. If what I think is happening is in fact happening, then the documentary won’t be made, and I’ll stop blogging in defense of Israel.

Before I have to make that choice, I’m going to prove to you once and for all that this incident was a deception. I’ve had to explain this so many times that I’m sick of the whole thing. You need to understand that I’m not a patient person. I lack the temperament to do what I’ve been doing for almost a year. What makes me crazy are closed minds. My lifelong attempt to live and thrive among my fellow humans was thwarted at every major juncture by closed minds.

So read this, you naysayers. This is what you’re arguing.

At 4:10 p,m. local time, an Israeli air-to-surface missile hit the steel shipping container on the Hamas naval compound.

Four boys ran from the breakwater to the al-Deira Hotel.

This is how far the boys ran. At the red arrow is a person.

It was 328 yards (300 meters).

At around the same time, Mohammed Abu al-Watfa (red arrow) arrived at the al-Deira.

He was carried to a taxi.

We’re told that the taxi took al-Watfa to al-Shifa Hospital.

While al-Watfa was being evacuated, two of the four boys who’d arrived at the al-Deira were given first aid.

Down the street, an ambulance parked in front of the Roots Hotel and Orient House on the right and the al-Andalus Wedding Hall and Restaurant on the left. We have no footage of the ambulance arriving or the paramedics running to the beach, but the rescuers were filmed returning to the ambulance with no patients.

Note that behind the bearded, heavyset paramedic in front is a much slimmer man carrying a collapsible red stretcher.

Here’s their ambulance (red arrow).

The ambulance parked on the corner of the Avenue Restaurant and Coffee Shop, two lots southwest of the al-Andalus Wedding Hall and Restaurant.

You can see it above the letter “C” in “Casualties of War.” It sat there for several minutes. The grab above is from footage taken by an NBC News camera crew that was filming from inside the al-Deira Hotel when the first explosion occurred, the sound of which was captured on film.

This is the moment that the first explosion shook the glass window pane of the hotel room.

After at least one minute, the camera crew ran from the room. NBC News never filmed a missile strike or explosion.

The NBC News camera crew went across the street from the al-Deira Hotel (15) and took an elevator to the top of the al-Ghifari Tower (16).

Then the NBC crew set up the camera on a tripod.

From the al-Andalus Wedding Hall and Restaurant, a Palestinian filmed the bodies of Mohammed, Ahed, and Zakaria Bakr lying on the beach.

He took several minutes to go downstairs and find a position closer to the beach.

At around this time, the ambulance parked at the corner of the Avenue Restaurant and Coffee Shop drove forward to park in front of the vacant lot between the Avenue Restaurant and Coffee Shop and the al-Andalus Wedding Hall and Restaurant.

However, the raw footage shows that there were two takes of the ambulance leaving the corner of the Avenue Restaurant and Coffee Shop. The paramedics ran to it at least twice, and it drove away at least twice. This is one take.

This is another take.

In the first take, the paramedic with the red stretcher is followed by bald paramedic, and in the second he’s followed by a Hamas operative in a yellow shirt. The Hamas commander in the purple shirt leaves with the ambulance in the first take, but in the second take, he’s already at the lot, waiting (red arrow).

A second ambulance had parked across the street at the assembly point, the corner of the Avenue Restaurant and Coffee Shop.

The flag (green arrow) identifies it. This ambulance went to the al-Deira Hotel to pick up Motasem-Muntaser and Hamad Bakr.

After the ambulances left the corner of the Avenue Restaurant and Coffee Shop for the second time, two Hamas operatives ran as as fast they could to the body of Mohammed Bakr.

From the top of the al-Ghifari Tower, NBC News filmed Mohammed Bakr’s body being collected.

A few seconds later, New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks shot an image of Hamas operatives removing a wounded man from the blue tent.

Mohammed Bakr was carried up the hill, where he was handed off to the Hamas second-in-command.

The second-in-command put Mohammed in the ambulance, and then he and the commander in the purple shirt sat there with him.

Then the wounded man from the blue tent was given to a strapping Hamas killer, who put him in the ambulance.

A third ambulance arrived, carrying cameraman Mohamed Jabaly. He and the paramedics ran down to the beach, retrieved Ahed and Zakaria Bakr, and put them in the ambulance. Jabaly filmed the ambulance carrying Mohammed Bakr and the wounded man.

The raw footage shows that after the boys were put in Jabaly’s ambulance, the vehicle didn’t leave. A Hamas killer snarled at photographer Heidi Levine for not getting out of the way when he told her to, and then she and Tyler Hicks went back to the beach, even though we’re told that there were no more bodies there.

At the al-Deira Hotel, Motasem-Muntaser and Hamad Bakr were put in the ambulance with the flag.

After the two boys from the al-Deira Hotel were loaded up, the ambulance carrying the corpses of Ahed and Zakaria Bakr arrived, and the two vehicles drove to al-Shifa Hospital together.

Everything I described above comprises all the elements of the discovery and removal of Mohammed, Ahed, and Zakaria Bakr from the beach.

My Israeli film editor tells me that I’m wrong about the sequence of events. This person says that Mohammed, Ahed, and Zakaria Bakr were removed from the beach first, and then Ismail was taken from the shipping container in the Hamas naval compound.

For my editor to be right, everything you saw above had to have taken place before all the foreign journalists ran to the beach. A Palestinian eyewitness says that the foreign journalists arrived at the breakwater in two minutes. Alex Marquardt of ABC News, Jonathan Miller of Channel 4 News, Nick Casey of the Wall Street Journal, Gallagher Fenwick of France 24, and Tyler Hicks of the New York Times all said that they immediately ran to the beach after the explosions.

Which is more likely, that everything described above happened before the journalists arrived and Ismail Bakr was removed from the steel shipping container, or that I’m correct, and Ismail Bakr was removed first, followed by the placing, “discovery,” and removal of Mohammed, Ahed, and Zakaria Bakr? If I am correct, it means that the bodies of the three boys were not present when the journalists arrived on the beach.

That proves that this was a deception operation.

My Israeli editor argues that all of the video shows that Mohammed, Ahed, and Zakaria Bakr were removed first. As anybody knows, even raw footage can be edited. The Mohamed Jabaly video has only two edits. It shows that it took well over two minutes for the paramedics to recover just the bodies of Ahed and Zakaria Bakr. Everything else? A minimum of twenty minutes. Did all those journalists sit in their rooms for twenty minutes and then suddenly sprint to the beach? Or did they run to the beach instantly, as they all say?

We also have footage that proves that Ismail was recovered first. When Liseron Boudoul of TF1 News arrived on the beach to watch Ismail’s recovery, she wore black body armor.

However, when she accompanied the Hamas commander in the purple shirt to watch the recovery of Ahed and Zakaria, she was not wearing body armor.

How likely is it that she first ran to the beach without body armor but then donned a flak vest after seeing that there was no more incoming fire?

My sense is that the editor doesn’t want to contradict the MAG Corps finding that the IDF accidentally killed the boys. It’s strange that my editor is opposing me so vigorously, because the person is anonymous. My guess is that the person thinks that my documentary will anger the IDF. I believe that in a few days, it will be impossible for me to make my film. Something will be made public that will discredit me, even though it isn’t true. If that happens, I’ll stop blogging about Israel.

It wasn’t a waste: Members of military intelligence and counterterrorist units from several countries have told me that they’ve studied my work closely. Also, solving the murders of the Bakr boys allowed me to finally access a long-suppressed memory that explains the horror of my existence in this cycle.

But I was lied about before, by enemies of Israel. I was portrayed as insane. If Israelis now begin to lie about me, then there’s no reason for me to continue defending Israel. It doesn’t mean that I won’t support Israel; however, I’d be an idiot to keep exposing myself to physical danger and incessant hacking if the very people I wanted to help now consider me a liability.

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