IDF officer stages protest over Hebron film screening

An IDF officer who was fighting Hamas in Gaza up until last week has been escorted out of an event at Limmud 2023 after staging a protest about the content of a film which showed ex-soldiers giving testimonies about alleged abuse of Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Matam Barmoy, who revealed he had been a serving officer in the IDF for 70 days during the current fight against Hamas in Gaza, walked up to the podium while the film Mission: Hebron was being screened on Sunday.

As a packed audience watched on he proceeded to shout “shame on you” before describing the content of the film, which featured ex-IDF soldiers accounts of alleged incidents in Hebron as “lies.”

Barmoy then urged the audience to instead view “the movie about Hamas and what they did in Gaza to our people”.

He was then escorted out of the screening room, continuing to shout, “Shame on you”.

Sunday’s screening, at the festival which is taking place at the Hilton Metropole Hotel in Birmingham, had been organised by Breaking the Silence, a group known for its critical stance on the Israeli military’s actions in the West Bank.

Barmoy, who has now begun work for the World Zionist Organisation, later told Jewish News that he continues to believe the IDF operates as “a moral army… we believe in human rights.”

He said: “Until last week I had been an officer in the IDF in Gaza during the war.  I was out of my house for 70 days.”

Barmoy added: “We are now fighting against Nazis. From 7 October, we understood that Israel was going to be destroyed if we did not go out and fight back immediately.”

Accepting that a war-time environment can produce terrible situations, he said he took issue with what he claimed to be one-sided accounts from former soldiers in the film.

“We need to understand and we need to separate the story of the soldier and that of the IDF,” he said. “The IDF is a moral army, we believe in human rights. If a soldier does things that are not legal then you need to punish them.”

Barmoy staged his protest as one ex-soldier in the film appeared to suggest the IDF beat young children in Hebron.  He said: “We don’t do things to harm or kill women or children or people not involved in terror.

“I can’t beat children. I do not know how to do this.”

Speaking calmly, Barmoy suggested some ex-IDF soldiers had turned to giving testimonies about past events in the military either out of guilt, or because they now wished to show a more liberal side, or to “build up prestige”.

In his new role as a shaliach (envoy) with the WZO, he said he represented all strands of Zionist thought from “the left to the right.. we have everything”.

Barmoy added: “But we will not represent lies and lying.”

The film Mission: Hebron was made in 2020 and was acclaimed by some media outlets including the New York Times. In it, six ex-soldiers share their accounts of day-to-day operations on the ground in Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank.

A Breaking the Silence spokesperson added: “The horrors of Oct 7 and the raging war in Gaza do not nullify the need to learn and discuss the reality of the ongoing military occupation in the West Bank.

“Now more than ever we need to openly discuss our vision for Israel’s future and promote a path to peace.

“In the spirit of Limmud we are happy a debate about the reality on the ground had started.”