Reversing an earlier denial, Israeli military officials have admitted that the Telegram channel 72 Virgins – Uncensored was operated by members of a department of the Israel Defense Forces’ Operations Directorate.

The probe, conducted by Maj. Gen. Oded Basyuk, head of the Operations Directorate, found that the information that led to the original denial that the channel was operated by or on behalf of the army was incorrect, and relied on misinformation relayed by members of the Influencing Department. In the wake of these findings, the unit’s wartime commander is to end his military service.

The channel’s administrators posted graphic content, such as images of the dead bodies of Hamas terrorists, captioned “Shatter the terrorists’ fantasy,” on a daily basis. On several occasions, they posted exclusive material from investigations or information that was only available to the defense establishment at the time, boasting that it was “exclusive from Gaza.” They uploaded thousands of videos and still images of the killing of terrorists and destruction in the Strip, and encouraged the channel’s followers to share the content so that “everyone can see we’re screwing them.”

The operators used coarse language in a bid to obscure the IDF’s involvement in the channel. An October 11 post read: “Burning their mother… You won’t believe the video we got! You can hear their bones crunch. We’ll post it right away, get ready.” Photos of Palestinian men captured by the IDF in the Strip and the bodies of terrorists were captioned: “Exterminating the roaches… exterminating the Hamas rats… Share this beauty.” A video of a soldier allegedly dipping machine gun bullets in pork fat is captioned: “What a man!!! Greases bullets with lard. You won’t get your virgins.” Another caption was: “Garbage juice!!! Another dead terrorist!! You have to watch it with the sound, you’ll die laughing.”