Turkish media outlets, Akdeniz Gercek Gazetesi and Guneydogu Ekspress, reported that a man, named ‘Amit Nakesh’, was the mastermind behind Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran on Wednesday (July 31).
A Turkish media outlet reporting on the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh made a mistake. They said the assassin’s name was ‘Amit Nakesh’, an Indian-sounding name. This error caused confusion and spread false information, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Turkish media outlets, Akdeniz Gercek Gazetesi and Guneydogu Ekspress, reported that a man, named ‘Amit Nakesh’, was the mastermind behind Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran on Wednesday (July 31). The name, ‘Amit Nakesh’, seems like a made-up name based on the Hebrew phrase, ‘hamitnakesh’, which means ‘the assassin’.
Some Turkish news outlets took the misinformation even further. For instance, Usak Olay invented a whole story about the fake assassin, saying he used to be an officer in the Israeli army and was part of a secret intelligence group. Another outlet, Herkes Duysun, even claimed he was a colonel. Because the made-up name, ‘Amit Nakesh’, sounds Indian, some people on Turkish social media started guessing that the assassin might have been from India, according to Usak Olay and Akdeniz Gercek.
But, even though the name sounded Indian, these Turkish news sources insisted the assassin was actually Israeli and famous for his intelligence work. They even said that understanding his fake background was important to figuring out why Haniyeh was killed.
Another Turkish news outlet, Takvim, had a different take. It said Israel was purposely spreading the fake name and story about ‘Amit Nakesh’ to confuse the Turkish media.
This is not the first time that something like this has happened. When there were rumours about the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, people on social media—and even a Hamas-related Telegram channel—said he was killed by a Mossad agent, named ‘Eli Copter’, obviously a misconstrued version of the word, ‘helicopter’.
(The author of this article is a Defence, Aerospace & Political Analyst based in Bengaluru. He is also Director of ADD Engineering Components, India, Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany. You can reach him at: girishlinganna@gmail.com)
(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not reflect those of DNA)
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