Not the Onion: CNN highlights 'suffering' of Israeli army bulldozer driver who ran over so many people in Gaza it made him turn vegetarian

An Israeli soldier who likely committed atrocities in Gaza was so traumatised by his actions against Palestinians that he can no longer eat meat, CNN has reported.

In an interview with CNN, Guy Zaken, a military bulldozer operator, admitted to running over the bodies of Palestinians both dead and alive, causing him PTSD and bloody flashbacks.

However, the CNN report, which chose to highlight the 'suffering' of Israeli potential war criminals rather than victims, and failed to challenge the soldiers' accounts of only killing 'terrorists', drew immediate outrage among media watchers who have long accused Western media of dehumanising Palestinians and only foregrounding the experiences of Israelis, including those who are likely committing mass murder.

Satirical newspaper The Onion even responded by re-sharing its 2018 article titled "IDF Soldier Recounts Harrowing, Heroic War Story Of Killing 8-Month-Old Child"

Zaken's colleague Eliran Mizrahi,, another operator of an Israeli army bulldozer, took his own life after participating in the atrocities in Gaza, according to the CNN report.

In a testimony to the Knesset, Zaken had earlier said that on many occasions, soldiers had to “run over terrorists, dead and alive, in the hundreds.”

“Everything squirts out,” he added.

Zaken told CNN he can no longer eat meat, as it reminds him of the gruesome scenes he witnessed from his bulldozer in Gaza, and struggles to sleep at night, the sound of explosions ringing in his head.

“When you see a lot of meat outside, and blood… both ours and theirs (Hamas), then it really affects you when you eat,” he told CNN, referring to bodies as “meat.”

"According to @CNN , the issue here isn’t that Israeli soldiers ran over hundreds of people, dead and alive, with their Caterpillar D9 bulldozers, until their bodies “squirted out.” No, the takeaway is that the soldier now can’t eat meat and has trouble sleeping at night. SO SAD," said Jehad Abusalim on X, Executive Director of Institute for Palestine Studies USA.

"The IDF soldier quoted in this CNN piece about postwar *trauma* refers to bodies & corpses in Gaza as “meat”...I’m so struck by the language here & how—as with so many other genocides—the perpetrators are able to distance themselves from their war crimes by denying humanity itself," said Erin Overbey, an American journalist formerly at The New Yorker.

Over 40,000 have been killed by Israel in Gaza, mostly civilians, and more than half of them women and children. 

In April, hundreds of bodies, including children, were discovered in a mass grave in Gaza's Nasser hospital likely dug by Israeli bulldozers of the likes operated by Zaken and Mizrahi.