Fact-check: Did Israeli children really sing about ‘annihilating everyone in Gaza’?

It’s a three-minute video that has been shared thousands of times on social media. Most of the comments expressed outrage that a group of Israeli children appear to be glorifying the destruction of Gaza.

“What type of world are we living in where kids are casually singing about death and destruction? This shows how early the indoctrination begins,” said one Instagram user.

The video was shared by the Israeli state-owned TV channel Kan News on their online platforms, before being taken down.

The lyrics were slammed by the online community as genocidal towards Gazans. 

Here is an excerpt: 

The children in the video are reportedly from the Gaza Envelope settlements, which lie within 7 kilometres of the Gaza Strip. 

Their populations were evacuated following the Hamas attack on 7 October. 

Turns out this video is indeed real and was posted by the Israeli group The Civil Front. 

According to their website, they claim to be “apolitical” and say their goal is to raise support for the Israeli army. 

The video is titled ‘Friendship Song 2023’ and is an adaptation of a famous poem commemorating Jews killed in the run-up to the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. 

The original song does not contain hostile lyrics towards Gaza, unlike the 2023 adaptation, according to the French newspaper Liberation.

The lyrics have been slammed by the international community as genocidal, just as the UN experts have warned that serious violations allegedly committed by Israel against Palestinians “point to a genocide in the making.”

Middle East Eye reported that the new lyrics were co-written by Ofer Rosenbaum, the chairperson of The Civil Front. 

Ofer Rosenbaum was also behind a controversial poster campaign in Israel, which used artificial intelligence to depict leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah looking beaten and bound as Israeli soldiers stood over them. 

The campaign elicited mixed responses from the Israeli public. We reached out to the Civil Front for a comment but we have yet to receive a response.