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Chapter 1: Introduction
0:000 secondsIt shows a British national [music] quite clearly involved in the destruction of Gaza.
0:099 secondsLook at their look at their smiles.
0:1212 secondsThat's the first time they're burning down a building. This war zone is a wild west. No rules. Absolute apocalypse.
0:2727 secondsThere should be an investigation and prosecution where warranted.
0:3131 secondsPressure is mounting on the UK government to properly investigate British Israeli dual nationals who fought in Gaza. In June, I asked then
0:4040 secondsMiddle East Minister Hamish Falconer what he was doing about it.
0:4343 secondsAnd it's a fairly straightforward question. Why aren't you stopping British nationals fighting for Israel while the UN says there's a genocide going on? Since the UK government
0:5252 secondsdoesn't seem prepared to investigate or even answer our questions, we've launched our own investigation.
0:5858 secondsTogether with my colleagues Hamza Yusf and Daniel Akad, we've uncovered shocking new evidence that puts a British citizen at the scene of an apparent war crime in Gaza.
Chapter 2: We found photos of Jonathan Burman in Gaza
1:101 minute, 10 secondsAnd it all started with a post on Instagram.
1:151 minute, 15 secondsHamza, you came to us with a photo. Can you tell us a bit more about where this photo came from and what it shows us?
1:231 minute, 23 secondsYeah, this is a a British national Jonathan Burman uh who served uh in the Israeli army and this this photo is of
1:301 minute, 30 secondshim standing in front of a school in Gaza which has clearly been heavily attacked is on fire is burning. This is uploaded on onto his private Instagram.
1:391 minute, 39 secondsIt shows a British national quite clearly involved in the destruction of Gaza, which we believe this this photo will have been taken between October 2023 and January 2024.
1:481 minute, 48 secondsSo, we've got we've got this one that we were just talking about of of Burman um in front of this burning school. What's this one showing us?
1:551 minute, 55 secondsYeah, this is uh one which appears to be Kunis. You can clearly see the destruction behind him. It looks like heavily destroyed buildings, maybe homes.
2:022 minutes, 2 secondsThat might be a little a children's bike in the background. That little red Yeah. bike clothing in all the pictures. or at least in quite a lot of them.
2:092 minutes, 9 secondsThere's the destruction of Gaza is is evident in in the background. Um unmissable almost.
2:152 minutes, 15 secondsAnd is he is he just in Gaza or are there other other places where we we seem to think he may be?
2:212 minutes, 21 secondsYeah, there are also photos he posted showing him in Lebanon uh and Syria as well. Uh different time periods. We believe Lebanon was in 2024 and Syria
2:302 minutes, 30 secondsmaybe the end of 2025. These are photos that he's put out himself. Um there's one interesting one which is him in a in a Manchester United football scarf. Um again stood next to rubble destruction.
2:422 minutes, 42 secondsYou know in the background you can see buildings kind of destroyed. Um and again the kind of this the sense of happiness, pride is is is detectable
2:512 minutes, 51 secondsthere. Sitting with the military overalls with other other soldiers uh eating snacks, drinking, having a laugh
2:582 minutes, 58 secondsum in the miniature overalls. Uh you know it's it's almost like it's all fun and games. It's all a bit of a laugh.
3:063 minutes, 6 secondsFrom Hamza's source and what's available online, we've managed to piece together a rough timeline of Jonathan Berman's
Chapter 3: Research into Burman's history, which brigade he was in
3:133 minutes, 13 secondslife. After attending a Manchester grammar school, Burman did a gap year in Israel from 2018 to 19 [music]
3:213 minutes, 21 secondsbefore moving there and signing up for the IDF. We believe this December 2019 photo was taken when he signed up for
3:293 minutes, 29 secondsthe army. [music] After deeper research, we found Burman was likely called up as a reservist
3:363 minutes, 36 secondsafter October [music] the 7th and served in the Israeli army's 55th Brigade, known as the tip of the spear.
3:453 minutes, 45 secondsIt's an elite reserve unit of paratroopers who are identifiable by their distinctive red tinge boots, the
3:533 minutes, 53 secondssame ones that Burman wears in this picture.
3:573 minutes, 57 secondsOther social media posts from Burman's unit offer a glimpse into what they were doing in Gaza. Here, the unit poses in
4:054 minutes, 5 secondsheavily damaged houses. In another, an elderly Palestinian woman appears to still be living in one of the homes.
4:144 minutes, 14 secondsThe Hinri Foundation, which investigates Israeli soldiers for legal action, has done extensive research on how the IDF
4:234 minutes, 23 secondswas organized in Gaza. They agree with us that Burman was a paratrooper in the 55th Brigade. And they are confident
4:314 minutes, 31 secondsthey even know his specific battalion, the 66th.
4:404 minutes, 40 secondsThis video of the 66th Battalion's commander addressing his men gives us an insight into the mindset of these soldiers as they entered Gaza.
5:055 minutes, 5 secondsWe spoke to someone who was present at this speech, Yaval Green, who served in the 66th Battalion as a medic.
Chapter 4: Interview with former Israeli soldier Yuval Green
5:135 minutes, 13 secondsWhat kind of mentality were your commanders trying to get you into before you went into Carnunis? When you look at
5:215 minutes, 21 secondsthe atmosphere of the of Israel after the 7th October, everything went nuts.
5:275 minutes, 27 secondsPeople have been apathetic towards the suffering of Palestinians for so long.
5:325 minutes, 32 secondsThey had no idea what was going on in Gaza. And the way people spoke after this was just insane. And they're
5:395 minutes, 39 secondsspeaking about killing all of the Gazians. Some of the people just really are driven by crazy insane religious ideas.
5:505 minutes, 50 seconds[cheering]
5:535 minutes, 53 secondsThey are extremists who believe that Jews should live everywhere around the ancient Israel and this was just an
6:006 minutesopportunity for them to kill as many Gazians as they can and kick them out and get their lands. They're saying this quite clearly.
6:096 minutes, 9 secondsThese videos believed to have come from the 66th Battalion show them blowing up this mosque and numerous residential buildings in Carunis in late 2023.
6:236 minutes, 23 secondsI sent Yaval the pictures of Jonathan Bur outside the school and asked how he felt seeing these images.
6:306 minutes, 30 secondsFelt awful. Really takes me back to one of the worst times of my life. this destruction.
6:376 minutes, 37 secondsIt just it just it's so difficult to see. Look at their look at their smiles.
6:436 minutes, 43 secondsThey just, you know, that's the first time they're burning down a building.
6:476 minutes, 47 secondsFor them, it's some type of a crazy experience and they don't think about the consequences cuz it's a place without rules.
6:576 minutes, 57 secondsYaval's insight helped us to understand the context in which Burman entered Gaza, but we still needed to try to
7:047 minutes, 4 secondsestablish which school Burman was standing in front of and why it was on fire. For help with this, Daniel
7:127 minutes, 12 secondscontacted Airwars, a transparency watchdog which specializes [music] in a technique called geoloccation.
Chapter 5: Airwars helped us to geolocate the school
7:207 minutes, 20 secondsSo Ryan, uh, we've come, we came to you with a photo of Jonathan Berman in front of a burning building which we thought
7:287 minutes, 28 secondswas probably a school and then we also found Reuters footage of a building, a school that we think is also the same school and we put it in your hands and
7:387 minutes, 38 secondsyou were able to narrow down and figure out where it was and I just wondered if you could walk us through how you did that.
7:437 minutes, 43 secondsSo as you said, you shared these two images with us and identified two kind of key features from the images. the first being this noon which is like N in
7:517 minutes, 51 secondsthe Arabic alphabet and then to the left of that um the word Jenna and then he shared this Reuters video and said we
7:587 minutes, 58 secondsbelieve that we kind of found matching imagery and so we went through and watched the video and we agree absolutely that this the two noons match
8:088 minutes, 8 secondsJenna matches um and so from there we were able to say okay it does appear that the footage from the school in this video is going to match the site uh from
8:168 minutes, 16 secondsthese photos and so from there we watched watched the Reuters video and they give almost a 360 of the scene and
8:238 minutes, 23 secondssome key features that start is that you see this building kind of stand alone at an angle and then as the video continues you come to see that there's this other
8:328 minutes, 32 secondsbuilding in a bit of a U shape. So, uh just to summarize we were looking for kind of a U or C-shaped building in
8:398 minutes, 39 secondsBenny Soa uh with like a kind of side building kind of at an angle to the to
8:468 minutes, 46 secondsthe U shape. Uh, and that's that's what you were looking for.
8:508 minutes, 50 secondsThat's what we were looking for. And from there, we went straight to sat satellite imagery and the Reuters video
8:578 minutes, 57 secondsreferred to um the town of Benisa, which is east of Kunis. So, we outlined um a general perimeter of Benisa, which is
9:069 minutes, 6 secondsabout uh 5 square kilometers. Um and then just began to look for schools in that area. Um and then ultimately here
9:139 minutes, 13 secondswe found that sea and we found that standalone building. So, from a quick look, it looks like, okay, this will probably match. Um, but from there, we need to prove why we thought this
9:229 minutes, 22 secondsmatched and ultimately see if we were right. So, we went back to the video and we kind of marked here's that standalone
9:299 minutes, 29 secondsbuilding. Here's a smaller building in the back. This school is called Mundra South Faravi. Um, and that appears to be the site of where your original photo was taken.
9:429 minutes, 42 secondsIdentifying where the photo of Burman was taken marked a key breakthrough in our investigation, and we were beginning to compile significant evidence about
9:509 minutes, 50 secondsthe role of a British national in the Israeli army's attack on Carnun. But this was just the start.
Chapter 6: Why was the school on fire?
9:589 minutes, 58 secondsWe now know from air wars that the photo of Jonathan Burman in front of the burning building, that's at the Alarabi
10:0610 minutes, 6 secondsschool in Khan Ununice in the Venezuela area. What we still don't know is when exactly this photo was taken and why the building is on fire.
10:1610 minutes, 16 secondsDid you have any leads on that?
10:1810 minutes, 18 secondsYeah, we managed to see some of the coverage in Arabic. There was kind of scarce coverage in English. Um, you know, there was so much going on at the time, intense bombardment. Um, and we
10:2610 minutes, 26 secondsjust saw, you know, a few, you know, strands of information coming from journalists on the ground, Telegram messages. 12th of December is when the kind of reports and messages started to
10:3510 minutes, 35 secondscome in of um some sort of event taking place which turned out to be an attack on the school. And then on the morning of the 13th and throughout the 30th of
10:4310 minutes, 43 secondsDecember 2023 is when some of the other reports and testimonies would also filter through from journalists as well as those um who were present in the school. And that's where the kind of the
10:5210 minutes, 52 secondstorture was mentioned the rounding up the detention um of Palestinians in the school. Um so that that gave us a bit more of an idea but we still needed to to dig a bit deeper. So could it could be answering our when and our why.
11:0611 minutes, 6 secondsTo find out more from a Palestinian perspective, we asked our correspondent in Gaza, Shyam Marwan, to track down people who were at Al Farabi's [music]
11:1511 minutes, 15 secondsschool when Israeli soldiers began their attack.
Chapter 7: Our reporter in Gaza gathered testimonies from the school
11:2111 minutes, 21 secondsThis was a difficult and potentially [music] dangerous assignment.
11:2711 minutes, 27 secondsfor
11:4211 minutes, 42 secondsDecember.
11:4811 minutes, 48 secondsDecember
12:1212 minutes, 12 secondsand is
12:4212 minutes, 42 secondsSo, we now know the school was raided in mid December 2023.
12:4712 minutes, 47 secondsBut was that when Jonathan Burman was there? We needed to trace his movements through Gaza. But we had a problem. We
Chapter 8: Where did Burman go in Gaza?
12:5412 minutes, 54 secondsknew his brigade, [music] the 55th, and his battalion, the 66th, but it was split into companies that were spread
13:0213 minutes, 2 secondsacross southern Gaza. Based on analysis of Israeli Army documents, the Hinrajab Foundation believes it has identified
13:1013 minutes, 10 secondsthe exact company he likely served with, B Company, and where it went in Gaza.
13:1913 minutes, 19 secondsBurman's story starts in November 2023.
13:2113 minutes, 21 seconds[music]
13:2313 minutes, 23 secondsA temporary ceasefire has been called in the fighting. Carnunis and the school have been relatively untouched by the
13:3013 minutes, 30 secondswar so far and Gardens are breathing a small sigh of relief.
13:3813 minutes, 38 secondsBut that relief is shortlived as the day after the ceasefire ends on the 1st of December, Israeli planes start a 4-month campaign pounding Gaza's second city.
13:4913 minutes, 49 secondsAnd a few days after that, Burman and his unit start to surround the city as other units move in to engage the
13:5713 minutes, 57 secondsPalestinian fighters inside Carunis.
14:0314 minutes, 3 secondsThroughout December, Burman's B Company was tied to the IDF's fourth combat team, which as this footage from their
14:1114 minutes, 11 secondssocial media shows, was based near KH Ununice, where it was involved in close combat fighting and blowing up many
14:1814 minutes, 18 secondsresidential buildings in what appear to be war crimes.
14:3714 minutes, 37 secondsBy following the movements of the fourth brigade, we believe Burman may have been stationed at Al Farabi school a bit
14:4414 minutes, 44 secondslater than we initially thought from mid January 2024.
14:5014 minutes, 50 secondsAt this time, it appears the IDF was using the school and the area around it as a base, as these satellite images show. Notice the armored vehicles.
15:0315 minutes, 3 secondsThat scenario sounds similar to what Yaval Green witnessed in other parts of Carunis.
Chapter 9: 'They wanted us to burn down the houses' - Yuval Green
15:1015 minutes, 10 seconds50 days after we went into Gaza, they're telling us to burn down the houses we were at. [snorts] And I go to my
15:1815 minutes, 18 secondscommander and I ask him, "Why are we burning down those houses?" And he has no good answer.
15:2715 minutes, 27 secondsAbsolutely no good answer. If you were to destroy a house in London, you you live in a country of law, you live in an
15:3415 minutes, 34 secondsorganized country, no one can just go and burn down a house. But this war zone is a wild west. No rules, absolute apocalypse.
15:4415 minutes, 44 secondsSo you could just go and do whatever you want. You can go and steal whatever you want from those houses. You could burn
15:5215 minutes, 52 secondsdown those houses and would have no consequences whatsoever. And I went to him and I told him, "If we're burning down those houses, I'm leaving the next day. I'm not willing to be a part of it.
16:0416 minutes, 4 secondsThis is the last straw. That's what happened. They burnt down the houses." I went back and this was it. Damaging
16:1216 minutes, 12 secondsschools and houses for no military purpose, as the 66th Battalion appears to have done, would be a war crime under the Geneva Convention.
16:2216 minutes, 22 secondsSatellite imagery shows how the battalion laid waste to large swaves of Gaza during Burman's tour. This is the
16:3016 minutes, 30 secondsschool before they arrived. And here it is after they left.
16:3616 minutes, 36 secondsAnd finally, in 2026, this well-used local school is now almost entirely flattened, and the area it once served, a complete apocalypse.
16:5016 minutes, 50 secondsImages like this have shocked many people around the world. When I look outside of Israel now, I see many people
16:5816 minutes, 58 secondsfurious with Israel, and for a good reason. It's also easy from their perspective to confuse between
17:0617 minutes, 6 secondssupporting Palestine and supporting the ending of the suffering in Gaza and the West Bank and actually supporting
17:1417 minutes, 14 secondsterror. What happened in the 7th of October have been one of the biggest traumas of our life. It have started this new horrible wave of violence.
17:2617 minutes, 26 secondsResisting in this way is not the right solution.
17:3217 minutes, 32 secondsThe challenge then is for international institutions to hold people accountable for the destruction of Gaza.
17:3917 minutes, 39 secondsWe presented our findings to a leading UN human rights lawyer, Chris Sedati, who is a member of their commission of
17:4717 minutes, 47 secondsinquiry on the occupied Palestinian territories till now the highest authority globally to conclude that Israel has committed genocide. The
17:5617 minutes, 56 secondsmethodology that Declassified UK has used is exactly the methodology that we use in conducting our own investigations.
18:0418 minutes, 4 secondsWe have found that there are very large numbers of digital material published by
Chapter 10: 'He must be investigated' - Chris Sidoti, UN Commission of Inquiry
18:1118 minutes, 11 secondsIsraeli soldiers or soldiers serving with the Israeli forces uh about their exploits. Um the boastfulness of these
18:1918 minutes, 19 secondssoldiers is quite incredible. But they produce material like the material that you describe of themselves uh at places
18:2718 minutes, 27 secondswhere war crimes have been committed or at least where serious events have occurred that give rise to the possibility of war crimes, crimes
18:3618 minutes, 36 secondsagainst humanity and post it um openly on uh on social media accounts. So that that information is important
18:4318 minutes, 43 secondsinformation. It's almost confessional information and in many cases it is confessional. Um, I note that you're not
18:5018 minutes, 50 secondssaying that uh this person is guilty of war crimes. We don't say that either. We say that the evidence is sufficient to
18:5818 minutes, 58 secondssupport further investigation and prosecution where warranted. And I think that's exactly correct.
19:0619 minutes, 6 secondsSo, should the Metropolitan Police's war crimes unit now be looking into Jonathan Burman? In the case that you've described, yes.
19:1519 minutes, 15 secondsAnd um similarly with cases that we have looked at uh in in relation to dual nationals from other countries. Yes,
19:2219 minutes, 22 secondsthere is the obligation that when this person is within the jurisdiction of the of the state, there should be an investigation and prosecution where warranted.
19:3419 minutes, 34 secondsBurman did not respond to our request for comment, but he still appears to be serving in the Israeli military. So I asked them to explain his photographs.
Chapter 11: IDF sends us a video of the wrong school
19:4519 minutes, 45 secondsYeah, you're calling from the IDF spokesperson's unit, right? Yes. From the international process.
19:5119 minutes, 51 secondsThey sent me a statement from 13th of December 2023 saying the IDF had eliminated [music] a terrorist cell
19:5919 minutes, 59 secondsoperating inside a school in Kunis and provided a link to a video which they said proved their case.
20:0720 minutes, 7 secondsAlthough the video showed the 55th Brigade clearing a school, it looked very different to the one in Burman's picture. Air wars checked and found that
20:1620 minutes, 16 secondsthe IDF video was filmed at a totally different school 2 km away from Al [music] Farabi.
20:2320 minutes, 23 secondsTherefore, it seems the IDF cannot explain or justify why the school in Burman's photo was on fire.
20:3220 minutes, 32 secondsEven if you did find weapons in a school, does that mean you can then just just burn down the whole school? Is that proportionate?
20:3920 minutes, 39 secondsI don't I personally don't think so. Is it helpful to burn down a school ever?
20:4720 minutes, 47 secondsBur still has questions to answer about his time in Gaza, which the Israeli authorities haven't asked him. His
20:5520 minutes, 55 secondsInstagram posts show that he visited the UK as recently as May this year. Given that Israeli prosecutors haven't [music]
21:0321 minutes, 3 secondsinvestigated him, will the Metropolitan Police's war crimes unit based here behind me add his name to their [music]
21:1021 minutes, 10 secondsprobe of British nationals who fought in Gaza? And given that more than 2,000 Britons have recently [music]
21:1721 minutes, 17 secondsserved in the IDF, how many other cases like Burmans are out there waiting to be [music] discovered?
21:3621 minutes, 36 secondsInvestive journalism like this is only possible with your support. Help Declassified reach 5,000 donors by going to declassifieduk.org/join.
We Exposed a British-Israeli Who Fought in Gaza
Declassified UK
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355,529 views Premiered Oct 13, 2026
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Our latest video investigation exposes a British man who fought for the Israeli army in Gaza when war crimes appear to have been committed.
Jonathan Burman, who is in his mid-20s and from Manchester, posted photographs on his Instagram account showing him fighting in Khan Younis early in the conflict.
Newly discovered images show Burman standing in front of a primary school in Gaza that had been set on fire, as a fellow soldier smiles beside him.
They were posted on his private Instagram account in January 2024, six weeks after the Israeli army violently occupied the school.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
01:10 We found photos of Jonathan Burman in Gaza
03:09 Research into Burman's history, which brigade he was in
05:09 Interview with former Israeli soldier Yuval Green
07:17 Airwars helped us to geolocate the school
09:52 Why was the school on fire?
11:20 Our reporter in Gaza gathered testimonies from the school
12:52 Where did Burman go in Gaza?
15:10 'They wanted us to burn down the houses' - Yuval Green
18:05 'He must be investigated' - Chris Sidoti, UN Commission of Inquiry
19:39 IDF sends us a video of the wrong school
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