A Kfar Saba Magistrate Court ruled Thursday that Ido Shifoni must pay approximately 180,000 shekels (roughly $50,000) to Reserve Major General Israel Ziv for defamatory statements suggesting he had advance knowledge of the October 7 Hamas massacre.
The lawsuit centered on a social media post in which Shifoni wrote: "Really, Israel Ziv, how is it that three people who swore to do everything to bring down the government, you, Tivon, and Yair Golan, together with the spy whose name is connected to this, knew to arrive at the location so early in the morning, prepared and polished to rush at the photographers? What did you know that the soldiers who were slaughtered in their beds didn't know?"
Judge Ronen Peleg rejected any alternative interpretation of the statement, ruling its meaning was unambiguous. "The court does not find that the defendant's words in the publication are unclear or subject to interpretive dispute," he wrote. "A reasonable person reading the publication understands their intent very well."
The judge elaborated on how a reasonable reader would interpret the post: "The plaintiff, a reserve major general, alongside two of his colleagues, Yair Golan and Noam Tivon, also reserve major generals, all three described as those 'who swore to do everything to bring down the government,' together with an unnamed spy, knew in advance to show up in the Gaza envelope on the morning of the October 7, 2023 massacre in order to be photographed and publicized."
According to Judge Peleg, the post implied an even graver accusation: "The assumption underlying the defendant's publication is clear: Israel Ziv and his colleagues knew in advance about the planned massacre and did not update the IDF."
