The monument that was placed in the heart of Amsterdam in memory of the Hezbollah terrorist – and the outrageous reaction

• A monument to the memory of Ali Die who was allegedly killed by Israel was placed in a central square in Amsterdam and at another site.
• The Instagram account in Die’s memory published pictures of him armed and with a Hezbollah flag, and his sister said he wanted to oppose Israel.
• The municipality of Amsterdam and the local police refused the request of an Israeli resident of the city to remove the monument.
• The local press published sympathetic articles about Die without mentioning his affiliation with Hezbollah.
• “Each blow like this hurts the heart, and pushes us a little further out of Holland,” says an Israeli resident of the city, who received threats on his life after revealing Die’s true identity.

T., an Israeli who has been living in Amsterdam for about a decade, almost saw himself as Dutch in every respect. He was well rooted in Dutch life, bought a house and made friends in the city and planned to settle there in the long run. But an innocent conversation in the WhatsApp group of the gym where he trained and worked out changed everything.

In the same conversation that he shares for the first time with N12, the owner of the gym, T’s friend, told about a young Lebanese man named Ali Die who trained at the Dutch gym for a period of time, and was allegedly killed in Lebanon by Israel. The owner of the institute even erected a monument in memory of Die inside the institute’s premises, and shared an emotional article in a popular media outlet in the country about the loss of the “motivated young man”. At the same time, another monument was erected in memory of Die in the Museum Square in the heart of Amsterdam, one of the most popular sites in the country – but something in the story did not work out for T.

The Israeli decided to do a little research, and soon discovered a completely different story. A series of signs and documents indicate that Die was in fact a Hezbollah fighter, and not an innocent and innocent young man who was deported from the Netherlands and killed for no wrongdoing at the hands of Israel. On a public Instagram account, which, according to the Dutch press, was shared by Die’s sister, he is documented with a uniform and a drawn weapon, in a space photo with the Hezbollah symbol, and was buried with the Hezbollah flag as part of the campaign in southern Lebanon.

This event, and the reaction of the authorities to it as will be described in detail in the article, made T. and his wife consider leaving Amsterdam after a decade. “The people here understand very well the direction of things. They scared us enough until we said enough is enough, and we get up and leave. We are aware of the past and I don’t want to wait for something to happen to get up and leave – I prefer to see the signs and learn from them.”

T hastened to contact the authorities regarding the public memorial of Die, which tens of thousands pass by every day. But even though he complained to the representative of the municipality – nothing was done. After a week in which the monument remained in place, he says he tried again, and the same representative clarified that she did nothing with the complaint he submitted. The Dutch representative even went above and beyond and clarified that she does not understand what is wrong with the monument, despite the fact that the Netherlands officially defines Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

“For me it is not clear (why the monument should be removed, Tel Aviv), – this is a free country. Anyone can do what they want and I don’t know the law you’re talking about,” said the representative in the phone call. The same representative refused to allow T to complete his report or pass it on to a higher official, threatened to complain about him, yelled at him and added another unusual and vague statement: “This is exactly how these people do it to the people who live here in the Netherlands”

“I felt that she was blaming me. I didn’t understand in what situation a clerk in the municipality is trying to collect details about a person who is trying to file a complaint. For me, it was very serious and I felt that there was also some implied threat from her,” says T. After that he also contacted the Dutch police, who were also quick to disappoint – according to him a policewoman asked him why the monument bothers him, if he lives about a kilometer from it.

“Most of the Jews in Amsterdam are in a state of fear and worry – they don’t know if anyone will come to protect them. And as soon as a monument to a terrorist who is presented as an innocent citizen is displayed – they realize that not only will no one come to protect them, but also that the authorities who are responsible for them are ready to distort things in order to create a narrative that presents them as people who commit genocide. This fuels the fire,” he shares.

Major media outlets in the Netherlands also rushed to adopt the line according to which Die was a helpless young man killed by Israel. The media outlet NRC, one of the largest and most respected in the Netherlands, decided to give Die an in-depth profile article without even once mentioning his connection to Hezbollah. He was described as a young man as “sweet, polite and a little shy” who was killed by Israel in the newspaper.

Also on the local website AT5, which mainly covers what is happening in Amsterdam, they published an article about the “mourning for the death of Ali (23) who was killed by a bomb after returning to Lebanon”. The article even covered the monument erected in his memory in the museum square, described him as “young and full of motivation” and criticizes the authorities who did not allow him to stay in the country. More articles were published about Die, and the distorted story was also circulated on social networks.

T. contacted the site and informed them about Die’s public ties to Hezbollah – but the site refused to take down the article. In response to a similar request from N12 with a false identity, the site asked for “additional information” to determine that Ali is a terrorist. After photos of Ali armed with a uniform and immortalized by Hezbollah were sent, the paper claimed that the images may have been generated by AI.

But shortly after the appeal, a new article was published on the website which was intended to “answer questions surrounding the death of Ali Daya”. In the new article there is a reference to photos of Die as a Hezbollah fighter, but again it is claimed without substantiation that it is not clear if the photos are real. In the very same article, Die’s sister clarifies that he wanted to “oppose the approaching Israeli army” and shared the photos from which it is clear that he is a terrorist in the terrorist organization – but even evidence did not cause the website to remove the old article that sympathized with Die, apologize or unequivocally state that he is indeed a terrorist. The article even included the following sentence: “The only thing that is almost certain is that Ali was killed in April in an IDF attack.”

When confronted by another Israeli with the fact that they did not apologize in the new article as well and published unverified information about a Hezbollah terrorist, they replied: “We published an article about how his friends erected a monument for him and how they remember him. Now we published an article that refers to the uncertainty that the Instagram page raises. How you interpret it – that’s your decision, but we don’t accuse someone of terrorism without reliable evidence.”

In an interview with N12, At5 deputy editor-in-chief Mango Arends said that he does not regret and does not feel the need to apologize for publishing the article about Die. “His sister told us that he was not a member of Hezbollah but that he fought, and it is possible that he did so with Hezbollah. We are not sure about that, there are many questions to ask. We published an article about the development, and there are many questions about his motives,” he explained Arends.

“There was a monument in the street to his memory. We asked what happened, and they told us that he lived for several years in Amsterdam and is a good guy,” he said, adding: “I can understand that you and other people in Amsterdam see it as a journalistic failure – I see it differently.” According to him, he did not know about the evidence that clearly indicates that Dei was part of Hezbollah when the initial article was published, and even after they were presented to him, they did not fully convince him that he was indeed a terrorist.

After the conversation, some minor changes were made to the article. Among other things, it was clarified in the original article that “Ali apparently went to fight in Lebanon.” In the second published article, the sentence was changed according to which he was definitely killed by the IDF.

T says that he had to physically come across the monument to Dei at the gym, and had to cancel the subscription after the director of the institute, with whom my friend had been in contact until that time, refused his request to remove the monument. “Our relationship was terminated and severed at this point, and our friendship is over. It breaks my heart. We see the things that are happening, and we are all aware of what is happening in Europe right now. But as soon as it hits so close to home – I was just hurt in a very, very deep way.”

The Israeli says that the fact that Dei was presented in the press as an innocent victim without the facts being checked “put him on the market”. He expressed anger that the conduct led to unjustified defamation of Israel, and emphasized: “Criticism is a reasonable thing, but taking a terrorist and presenting him as an innocent citizen is not only a lie – it is also a manipulative attempt to tilt public opinion against Israel.”

Following the chain of events, T. decided to turn to the “Blue Star of David” project, which provides legal assistance to Jews in Europe who experience anti-Semitism. He expressed hope that the process will raise awareness of what is happening in Amsterdam, the removal of the monument and legal treatment at the municipality, at the gym and in the newspapers where the article was published.

The project works under the department for the fight against anti-Semitism in the Israeli Community Europe organization and is designed to respond to cases of this type. After T’s appeal, the project team, in cooperation with the legal authorities at the European Jewish Association, the umbrella organization of European Jews that represents hundreds of Jewish communities across the continent, began collecting the factual and evidentiary infrastructure and contacting the relevant authorities, including the municipality of Amsterdam. The organizations continue to accompany the case.

After many weeks and requests from N12 and factors in the Jewish and Israeli community, the monument is now no longer in Museum Square in Amsterdam.

After publishing Die’s true identity on social media, T received real threats against his life. “Drown, please, you pedophile, or someone will come to you,” he was told. At the same time, his associates also received requests in order to reach him.

He shares that he is considering taking a step that until recently was unimaginable in his past – leaving the city that has been his home for the past decade. “Because of this event, which joins a series of events we have heard about in the past, my wife and I are considering leaving the Netherlands, we are in the process of preparing and understanding where we are moving to. It joins the general conduct and hatred towards Israelis,” shares T. painfully.

“Until now I had my concerns, every blow like this hurts my heart, and pushed us a little further out of the Netherlands. We have to sell our apartment, the center of our life here, we settled in the Netherlands and I saw myself as a Dutchman shortly. This is one of the things that hurts me – I’m not leaving as a result of the fact that I don’t want to live in the Netherlands, but as a result of the fact that I probably can’t continue living in the Netherlands,” he concludes.

The City Hall of Amsterdam did not respond to the article.