According to Seoul’s foreign ministry on Thursday, the Israeli embassy in South Korea has taken down a film depicting a made-up scene in which Koreans are attacked in Seoul by masked attackers, a clear reference to Hamas.
The ministry asked the Israeli embassy to remove the video because it was judged “inappropriate,” according to a statement issued to AFP.
The clip, released by South Korean broadcaster YTN, showed a disturbing scenario in which a South Korean woman in the capital is kidnapped by an armed attacker on Christmas Day and forced to part ways with her young daughter. The video is no longer accessible on the embassy’s social media accounts.
The Israeli embassy wrote, alongside the now-removed video posted on its Facebook account on Tuesday: “On October 7th, Israel was attacked by Hamas terrorists. 1,200 men, women and children were killed, and over 240 people were taken hostage in Gaza.”
“Imagine if it happened to you. What would you do?” it added.
South Korea remains technically at war with nuclear-armed North Korea, as their 1950-53 military conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
YTN reported that Israel’s ambassador in Seoul Akiva Tor said in a social media post that has since been deleted: “We have reconstructed the horrifying terrorist incident that took place on October 7th to help South Koreans in East Asia, far away from Israel, understand the current war situation.”
According to an AFP count based on Israeli numbers, Israel has repeatedly threatened to continue its battle to eliminate the Palestinian militant group Hamas in punishment for its horrific strike on October 7, which claimed the lives of nearly 1,140 people, the most of them civilians.
More than 250 hostages were taken by Palestinian militants; according to Israel, 129 of them are still being held captive.
The most recent death toll from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry is at least 21,110, the majority of whom were women and children as a result of Israel’s ceaseless shelling and ground invasion.
“The killing and kidnapping of Israeli civilians by Hamas cannot be justified, but the Israeli Embassy’s production and distribution of a video drawing parallels to the security situation in another country was deemed inappropriate,” South Korea’s foreign ministry said in the statement.
“We have conveyed our position to the Israeli Embassy in South Korea, and the Israeli side has taken measures to delete the video in question.”