Israelis dress as Palestinians for live-action war game set in Gaza

A live-action simulation game allowing Israelis to role play as Israeli agents fighting in Gaza's al-Shifa hospital is provoking heated online reactions.

"Fauda: Explosive Lab" is an "escape room" in Tel Aviv, Israel, based on the controversial Israeli Netflix show Fauda. Participants in the game pay to pretend to be Israeli agents sent to Gaza.

The game requires them to disguise themselves as Palestinians and make their way to a set that emulates Gaza's al-Shifa hospital. 

In a fictional version of the hospital's emergency room, the players use pretend guns to shoot at fake Palestinian fighters attacking them through the windows.

From there, the players must enter a tunnel below the mock al-Shifa, where their mission is to neutralise a chemical bomb bound for Tel Aviv.

The real al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip was subject to a days-long Israeli siege in November that led to numerous civilian casualties, including the deaths of four babies. 

The hospital has since faced more attacks. According to a Doctors Without Borders report in late January, the hospital is "badly damaged and barely functional". 

Although the Israeli military has claimed since October that Hamas maintained a command and control centre below al-Shifa, it has failed to prove it.

Last week, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned of a "catastrophic" healthcare situation in the Gaza Strip, with only three functional hospitals left in the besieged enclave.

But in Tel Aviv, al-Shifa hospital has become a source of entertainment.

Israelis are "wanting to kick some Arabs' ass", said Arik Turkenich, the businessman behind the popular escape room. 

He opened the escape room in 2016 after Fauda debuted on Netflix, but reported that business has been booming since January, with most customers choosing to play the game set in al-Shifa hospital over others.

Visitors to the escape room, Turkenich said, have included Israelis who were evacuated from near the Lebanese border, a unit of Israeli soldiers in uniform, and even a soldier who had recently returned from Gaza on his first night out with his wife. 

Turkenich told Forward that he always ensures players complete the mission and win the game.

"Everyone in Israel thinks they're so smart and they, you know, blame the operator if they don't win."

A user on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, slammed the escape room, writing: "There's a lot to say about a start-up culture that continually innovates new grotesques."

Accountability Archive, which says it keeps a record of public figures supporting the "ethnic cleansing of Gaza", described the escape room as a "horrifying microcosm".

Multiple social media users mocked the fact that it is ensured that all players win the game.

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza since 7 October has surpassed 28,000, most of them women and children, according to the Palestinian health ministry. 

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.