NRK’s Middle East correspondent Yama Wolasmal has interviewed David Mencer, Israel’s new international spokesperson. The interview was pure revolver journalism. The spokesperson barely had time to answer before he was met with new aggressive questions.
The interview that Wolasmal did with Hamas leader Osama Hamdan in November was cozy talk compared to this – excessively aggressive – interview.
In any case, Mencer answers well for himself, even if he is sometimes provoked by some of the questions from NRK’s journalist. NRK has published the over 24-minute long interview in its entirety on its website. The interview is not only aggressive, it also contained a number of false claims.
Early in the interview, Wolasmal claimed that the International Court of Justice in The Hague thinks it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. This is a gross misinterpretation of what the ICJ itself has said. Recently, the president of the International Court of Justice also went out and emphasized that the court not has considered whether the accusations of genocide by South Africa are plausible or not.
Wolasmal also casts doubt on whether there were instances of beheading during the October 7 massacre, although this has been confirmed by witnesses and forensics. Hamas has also filmed one of the beheadings itself, where a person is beheaded with a shovel.
The NRKS Middle East correspondent also tries to cast doubt on the accusations that Hamas had built a command center under the Shifa hospital in Gaza City.
– Have you shown any evidence of such a command centre? asks Wolasmal.
The question from NRK’s journalist causes Israel’s spokesperson to react strongly. Both Israeli and foreign journalists were given a tour of the tunnels under the Shifa hospital. As a journalist from the left-wing Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz commented after seeing the site with his own eyes: There is no doubt that there was a Hamas base under the Shifa hospital.
At the same time that Wolasmal believes that Israel has not proven a command center under the hospital, he says that Israel has “used it as an argument to lay the hospital in ruins”. This is another erroneous claim. The truth is that not a single shot was fired inside the hospital in connection with the operation at the time. The hospital was fully operational when Israeli soldiers withdrew.
The Shifa hospital, on the other hand, suffered extensive damage several months later, when up to a thousand terrorists entrenched themselves inside the hospital and tried to use it as a base to regroup. Over 200 terrorists were killed and over 500 arrested at the hospital at the end of March.
Wolasmal further asks Mercer why Israel has attacked several of the hospitals in Gaza. Has NRK’s correspondent caught wind of the terrorists’ misuse of hospitals? The terrorist groups themselves have acknowledged that they misuse all hospitals.
When Wolasmal repeatedly presses Mercer on questions about the evidence that Hamas exploits the hospitals, the Israeli spokesman becomes clearly irritated.
– I think the questions are ridiculous. What else do you need to see? You have seen videos. Hamas has admitted it. The terrorists were in the hospital, he says.
Wolasmal also claims that an “independent” investigative report has cleared UNRWA of allegations that staff participated in the 7 October massacre. This is also wrong. The investigative report was not independent, but commissioned to exonerate UNRWA. It also did not investigate whether UNRWA staff participated in the terrorist attack.
More evidence has been presented of UNRWA employees’ links to Islamist terrorist groups and that they participated in the terrorist attack itself on 7 October.
In the interview, Wolasmal defends the figure from Hamas of 34,000 killed by pointing out that the UN and WHO have previously vouched for the figures, but it was under completely different conditions. Now there are up to 30 times more people killed and far more unclear conditions. Hamas itself has acknowledged that it has reported almost a third of the dead on the basis of “media reports”.
Experts in statistics, who have reviewed the figures from Hamas, believe that the data has been altered, but that it could also be a complete falsification.
When Mencer says that over 13,000 of those killed were Hamas terrorists, Wolasmal becomes confrontational and demands proof.
– We have the proof from the battlefield. We know how many terrorists we have killed in battles, Mencer replies, but this answer is not good enough for Wolasmal.
The NRK correspondent believes that Israel should present a list of names.
It is naturally difficult for Israel to document exactly how many terrorists have been killed, although they probably have a good estimate. Hamas also acknowledged in February that it has lost over 6,000 of its armed men. When Hamas comes up with such a figure, there is reason to believe that it is greatly understated.
– Why should the world believe you when you make undocumented claims, asks Wolasmal to an increasingly frustrated spokesperson.
Mencer takes a breath before answering the NRK journalist.
– Yama, we have produced all the evidence you are talking about, but unfortunately it is never enough for people who do not want to see the truth, he says dejectedly.
Finally, Wolasmal asks why Israel will not pay for the reconstruction of Gaza after the war. Has the NRK correspondent forgotten who started the war? Should Israel pay for the damage that Hamas bears responsibility for? Why shouldn’t Hamas, where several of the leaders are multi-billionaires, pay?
Will Hamas pay for the destruction they caused in Israel on October 7?
Wolasmal also claims that 2.4 million people have lost their homes in Gaza, in other words that absolutely all homes have been destroyed. Such exaggerated exaggerations are just frivolous on NRK’s part. A UN agency, which NRK is usually fond of referring to, says that 35% of the buildings in Gaza are damaged or destroyed.
Also last week, NRK’s Middle East correspondent made several mistakes:
