Several Turkish media outlets have embarrassed themselves by publishing the purported identity of a Mossad agent allegedly responsible for assassinating Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh this week. The story, based on information claimed to be from anonymous online sources, quickly unraveled as it became apparent the "agent" was a fictional character created by Israeli internet users as a prank that relied on a Hebrew pun.
For Israelis, however, the origin of this information is painfully clear. The name circulated by Turkish media, "Amit Nakesh," is actually a rather unimaginative wordplay concocted by Israeli users on the social media platform Reddit, using the transliteration of the Hebrew word for assassin. Turkish news editors took the bait, hook, line, and sinker. İlay Aksoy, a senior Turkish public political figure with a massive following online, appears to have also fallen for the joke when she tweeted about the "revelation."
İsrail kaynakları, Hamas Siyasi Büro Şefi İsmail Haniye'ye suikast düzenleyen kişi daha önce bir çok suikastta yer alan Mossad ajanı Amit Nakesh olarak açıkladı. pic.twitter.com/btPoAvzgf8
— İlay Aksoy (@ilay_aksoy) July 31, 2024
Taking the farce to new heights, the news website of the Akdeniz Gerçek Gazetesi newspaper dedicated an entire profile piece to the fictitious Amit Nakesh. Their report read: "Amit Nakesh is a seasoned agent of Mossad, Israel's clandestine intelligence service. Following his military service, Nakash joined Mossad and became involved in high-profile operations. His expertise lies in assassinations and intelligence gathering. Amit Nakesh has been a key player in several operations targeting entities Israel deems hostile."
A screenshot of the Ilay Aksoy's tweet "revealing" the name of the assassin as Amit Nakesh
In a further stretch of the imagination, the newspaper speculated that Nakesh is of Indian-Jewish descent, basing this assumption on the name Amit, which is indeed common in India. They also asserted, somewhat redundantly, that he holds Israeli citizenship rather than Indian.
Several months ago foreign media was duped when Israeli online trolls jokingly said that a Mossad agent called Eli Copter, a play on the word helicopter, was responsible for bringing down then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's aircraft, leading to his death.
