A video circulating on social media captured an unsettling coincidence for a young Lebanese woman who came upon footage on Instagram of IDF soldiers playing her old piano and walking around in the bombed-out wreckage of her family home.
When Julia Ali, who lives in London, U.K., came across the clip a few days ago, she recognized the unique interior of her family home in the town of Khiam in southern Lebanon and the piano she had fond memories of playing there.
The piano room, with its nearly floor-to-ceiling arched window that once filled the space with light, had the windows and doors blown out and now appeared dull and grey, with much of its interior reduced to rubble.
Shocked and heartbroken, Ali dug up a year-old video of herself in that same room at that same piano playing a composition from The Pianist and posted it along with the footage of the soldiers in a grim before and after post on her own Instagram account. The post has been viewed more than a million times.
“Watching the place I called home turn to rubble is a pain too deep for words,” Ali wrote in the post.
“This wasn’t just walls and a roof; this was years of my family’s dreams, sacrifices and love built into a sanctuary. Now, to see invaders wandering through it, mocking it, touching the piano where I once poured my heart into every note … it feels like they’re trampling on pieces of my soul.”
Footage posted by Palestinian journalist
The video of the soldiers inside the home was reposted on the Instagram and X accounts of a Palestinian journalist known as Tamer. Tamer lives outside Gaza and asked CBC to use only his first name or X handle, Tamerqdh, for fear that it could compromise the safety of his family still inside Gaza.
He told CBC News he found the video last Friday posted as an Instagram story on the account of an IDF soldier. Tamer shared the original post with CBC, but the account is no longer active.
In the video, one of the soldiers is seen lying on top of the piano swinging his feet absentmindedly and aiming a gun out the blown-out window as another leans against the piano also pointing a gun and a third soldier plays the piano. Two other soldiers walk through the house, with one of them skipping to the music.
Lebanon’s state news agency said Tuesday it estimates 40,000 housing units in the country’s border region have been destroyed in Israeli airstrikes.
Khiam, which is roughly six kilometres from the border with Israel and is home to one of the largest Shi’ite communities in southern Lebanon, has been targeted by airstrikes for several weeks now. Last Thursday, Hezbollah said it had launched several rocket and artillery attacks against Israeli forces near Khiam.
The Israeli military and the militant group Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across the border for more than a year in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel, but hostilities have escalated over the last six weeks.
More than 3,000 people have been killed over the last year, the vast majority of them in the past six weeks, and more than 1.2 million people displaced as a result of the fighting according to Lebanese health authorities.
Smoke billows over the Lebanese town of Khiam after Israeli strikes, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as pictured from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, on Oct. 20. (Karamallah Daher/Reuters)
‘I have hope that we will rise from this’
It’s not clear when Ali and her family were last in the house. CBC News reached out to Ali but did not receive a response in time for publication.
In her Instagram post, she expressed hope that she and others who have been uprooted by the recent violence would eventually be able to return and rebuild their lives.
“I have hope that we will rise from this, rebuilding not just a house, but a new chapter filled with resilience, strength, and the memories of all that was lost,” she wrote.
In a statement to CBC News Tuesday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) did not confirm the video was posted by one of its soldiers but said it “acts to address exceptional incidents that deviate from the orders and expected values of IDF soldiers.”
Israeli soldiers during a ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel in October. The IDF said it investigates social media posts that are allegedly show disrespectful behaviour by its soldiers. (Sam McNeil/The Associated Press)
The IDF said it examines reports of videos posted on social media and “handles them with command and disciplinary measures.”
“In some of the examined cases, it was concluded that the expression or behaviour of the soldiers in the video was inappropriate, and it was handled accordingly,” the statement said.
The social media posts of Israeli soldiers deployed in Gaza and Lebanon have been scrutinized in the past by media outlets, including the New York Times, Al Jazeera and the Times of Israel, which have reported on images and videos showing cavalier ransacking of homes and buildings, the mocking of local populations and other inappropriate behaviour during military operations.
The IDF has condemned such behaviour, telling the New York Times, for example, that such posts violate IDF regulations that forbid the sharing of content that “affects the image of the IDF and its perception in the eyes of the public” and shows behaviour that “harms human dignity.”
Screengrabs from the two videos posted on social media. Squares indicate some of the areas that match up and suggest the videos were filmed in the same location. (juliaali1/Instagram, tamer.qdh/Instagram, CBC)
CBC News analyzed the videos posted by Ali and Tamer and found similarities in the footage that suggest they were filmed in the same location, including:
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The large chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
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The unique, floor-to-ceiling, arched window frame and curtains.
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The location and size of a smaller window to the right of the larger one.
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The molding on one of the supporting columns in the room.
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The small couch to the right of the piano that has been moved but looks to be the same shape and size.
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The piano shape, size and position, although its orientation has changed slightly.
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The design and size of the piano bench.