Verification #1: Yes, There were Serious Rumors of an Iranian Attack on Eretz Yisrael which, B'Chasdei Hashem, Never Happened
He seemed especially amused when emphasizing "classified." We all get the irony.
"The reserve units received Tzav 8!" he added. This is an official urgent call-up.
With icky memories of sending him off on October 7 wearing a disgustingly stinky uniform, which I hadn't washed upon his coming home for Simchat Torah (after a week of basic training for combat units, their clothes and socks REEK to the point where I hate even touching them to push them into the washing machine; I didn't realize he would need them, especially since he was part of a charedi unit in basic training and not even an official soldier yet), so now, I made sure to launder and iron everything he needed.
(And I wish that allowing him to go off to fight wearing disgustingly stinky clothes had been the most traumatic thing that happened on October 7. May we experience no more sorrows or anguish, and only hear good news from now on.)
Later, I found out this had been announced all over the Internet and not any kind of secret.
As we all know now, nothing happened (not from Iran, anyway; other enemies committed other crimes).
Verification #2: The Gazan Muslim-Arabs Really Did Live Well in Gaza.
If you watched media from alternative or right-wing sources, you saw drone footage and photos of sunny colorful luxury homes, parks, promenades, and hotels.
Because of past experience, I do not completely trust any media — not even that which promotes my own views.
However, first- and second-hand reports from IDF soldiers serving recently in Gaza informed me that they saw many luxury homes and apartments.
In fact, in their search for terrorists, tunnels, weapons, and other horror paraphernalia, Israeli soldiers repeatedly encountered really nice homes and apartments.
Aside from actual life-and-death concerns, another worry that plagued me during the winter was the sleeping and living conditions for the soldiers.
Baruch Hashem, there was TONS of rain this year.
A great many Jews worldwide davened about this and it even became a popular halachic question, about how to daven for it not to rain on the Israeli soldiers camping out in Gaza, even as we need to daven for copious rain in Eretz Yisrael.
Imagine my relief and joy to learn how the soldiers rarely camped outside; instead they made use of the MANY fine living quarters available throughout Gaza.
They also found lots of nice jewelry.
I'm not saying no one was poor in Gaza. But with so many Middle Eastern countries consisting of a wealthy class and an impoverished class, or with a weak middle class, Gaza remained the same — if not better — than any other Muslim country.
So if anyone wishes to get all worked up about the living conditions in Gaza (prior to the current war), you also need to get all worked up about the living conditions in ALL Muslim countries.
Again, the Gazan lifestyle not only equaled the norm in every other Muslim country in the world; it sounded like luxury apartments, fine jewelry, and trendy items are quite common there.
So that's just another lie (and its truth!) exposed.
And there you go.