Does a viral image show “Israeli Major General Shitan Shaul” under arrest on charges related to war crimes in Rafah? No, that’s not true: The 2022 photo predates the most recent round of escalation in the region that began with the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. The image was originally published online to illustrate news reports about a suspected Irish gangster’s arrest in Spain.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on X on August 14, 2025. It opened:
Dutch police have arrested Israeli Major General 📷 Shitan Shaul commander of the Armored Corp this morning on charges of committing war crime in Rafah. Charges were brought forward by a human rights organization as he was spotted enjoying his summer vacation on The Hague beach.
This is what the post looked like on X at the time of writing:
Source: screenshot of a post by the @joekaren46 account on X. com
The same image, however, had been online for years.
On September 15, 2022, it illustrated a Telegraph article (archived here) published under the title:
Notorious gangster ‘Johnny Cash’ arrested in Spain over €200m money laundering scheme.
It continued:
A Rochdale bouncer turned enforcer for Ireland’s most notorious criminal cartel has been arrested in Spain in a raid to catch ‘one of Europe’s biggest money launderers’.
Johnny Morrissey, known as Johnny Cash for the wads of bank notes he carried with him, is suspected of laundering more than €200 million (£174m) for the Kinahan gang, a criminal network whose leadership have been in hiding from European and US authorities.
In the photo, the officer to the detainee’s left is not wearing the uniform of a Dutch police agency. Her vest is clearly marked “Guardia Civil” which is Spain’s nationwide police force. Behind her walks a man wearing the insignia of Ireland’s Garda, the Emerald Isle’s national police agency.
Searches on Google News and Yahoo News (archived here) did not confirm the rumor about an Israeli military leader that was spread in the post reviewed in this fact check.
