TML Investigates: Col. Richard Kemp Rejects Italian Ex-Spy’s Claims of US Troops and Dozens Killed in Gaza Italian journalist and former Senator Tommaso Cerno defends Marco Mancini’s revelations about a Hamas raid in Khan Yunis as a necessary truth, while Israeli and British security voices dismiss the story as implausible By Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line […]
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The Media Line: Col. Richard Kemp Rejects Italian Ex-Spy’s Claims of US Troops and Dozens Killed in Gaza- TML Investigates
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TML Investigates: Col. Richard Kemp Rejects Italian Ex-Spy’s Claims of US Troops and Dozens Killed in Gaza
Italian journalist and former Senator Tommaso Cerno defends Marco Mancini’s revelations about a Hamas raid in Khan Yunis as a necessary truth, while Israeli and British security voices dismiss the story as implausible
By Gabriel Colodro/The Media Line
An interview published today in Il Tempo, an Italian daily newspaper based in Rome, has sparked controversy after Marco Mancini, the former head of Italy’s counterespionage service and longtime senior official at the Department of Information for Security, described a recent Hamas attack in Gaza as a “small October 7.” Mancini claimed that 15 fighters emerged from a tunnel near Khan Yunis on August 20, killed 30 people, including Americans, and that one attacker blew himself up when Israeli drones arrived. He also asserted: “In the Strip, there are still 18 Israeli hostages alive, according to reliable sources. In almost two years, no one has managed to free them. This is the measure of Hamas’s still-active strength.”
The official Israeli account of the incident is very different. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that four soldiers were wounded, one of them seriously, and said no Americans were present. International media repeated those figures, highlighting the gulf between Mancini’s account and confirmed reports.
Retired British Col. Richard Kemp, who commanded troops in Afghanistan and has closely followed Israeli military affairs, dismissed the notion of American combat troops fighting alongside Israeli forces. “I think there may well be American troops in Gaza, but they would be special forces. They would not be involved, in my view, in the fighting, direct fighting that’s going on. They could be involved in trying to rescue some hostages, including American hostages still there. But they’re not going to be fighting a lot. I would just be astonished if they were fighting alongside the Israelis in regular combat. That would be, I think, an outrageous suggestion.”
On Mancini’s assertion that 30 soldiers were killed, Kemp was also doubtful. “As far as the 30 troops killed, I mean, it’s the sort of thing you hear quite a bit from people. I wouldn’t expect it from this guy’s stature. … It’s unlikely to be the case because how would you keep something that quiet if it’s an IDF unit? Then a lot of people in the IDF are going to know that 30 people have been killed. And how do you shut them up? … It’s very hard to believe that.” He added: “It sounds a bit exaggerated or a lot exaggerated … but who knows? You hear all sorts of things.”
IDF Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen was even more direct. Asked about the alleged presence of American forces, he replied, “No, I don’t know anything like this, I don’t think so. There are no American forces there.” On claims that 30 Israelis and Americans were killed, he said simply: “No, there’s no such thing, it’s not true.”
Tommaso Cerno, editor-in-chief of Il Tempo, defended publishing the interview, saying the importance of Mancini’s testimony lay in exposing propaganda as much as in verifying numbers. “This is a very important moment for the democratic world,” Cerno told The Media Line. “There is a propaganda machine built on distorted values that is spreading across Europe. That makes it necessary to communicate what is actually happening.”
He said Mancini was warning that Hamas is attempting to stage operations meant to resemble the October 7 massacre. “These attempts are designed to simulate October 7. They want to recreate that day. Hamas has far more information on Israel than many realize. They use fake journalists and fake news, presenting civilians who are in fact terrorists.”
Cerno also connected Mancini’s claims to the position of President Donald Trump. “Mancini is saying that Trump’s America knows what is happening, and that Trump decided to intervene together with Israel to stop these Hamas attacks. Trump, at this moment, is acting as the American president, taking responsibility for protecting Israeli-Americans and pushing the West to wake up to terrorism.”
Pressed about the discrepancies between Mancini’s claims and official Israeli figures, Cerno argued that secrecy around such operations is deliberate. “Mancini said what he could as an expert in intelligence. There are special agents, from the United States and Europe, operating today, and you cannot know exactly who they are. That is the nature of such missions. But Mancini said they are in Israel and fighting for democracy.”
He defended Mancini’s credibility by pointing to his past disclosures. “He has shared information before, for example, revealing the first maps of Hamas tunnels before the Israeli government acknowledged them. So he is a person who genuinely has access to information.”
Cerno described Mancini as “one of Italy’s top experts on terrorism. He is a former head of the secret services and the Department of Information for Security. Mancini comes from a tradition in Italian intelligence that has long understood the role of Palestinian terrorism in shaping both Italian and European security debates.”
Italy’s own history of terrorism, Cerno argued, makes Mancini’s perspective relevant. “The most famous case is the Moro pact. When Aldo Moro was kidnapped and killed, Italy initially blamed the Red Brigades, a criminal organization. But from that point on, there was an unspoken arrangement between Palestinian terrorists and Italian groups. The government knows many details that have never been revealed. That history explains why our intelligence services have deep connections to those fighting Hamas today.”
Asked if he expected pushback, Cerno replied: “I have not yet received any official reactions, but that is normal. I have not received corrections either, because those who know about the events of August 20 understand that we have verified them carefully, and we are telling a truth that other newspapers in Europe do not have the courage to publish.”
He insisted that publishing such claims was his duty as a journalist. “It is not right for governments to control the story and release it only when they choose. If they hide it, the question becomes: why didn’t you tell the public? Governments act for defense and security, but refusing to report these actions plays into Hamas’s propaganda. Terrorists want silence and distortion. By publishing, we show readers that not everything they are told is true—and that, if anything, weakens terrorism rather than helps it.”
The controversy now turns on three explosive claims: the number of soldiers killed in Khan Yunis, the supposed presence of American operatives, and Mancini’s assertion that only 18 Israeli hostages remain alive in Gaza. His words, amplified by Cerno, frame these as truths the West must confront. Yet Kemp and Hacohen reject them outright—one calling the idea of American troops “outrageous,” the other dismissing it as “not true.”
Two competing narratives of August 20 now stand in open contradiction. For some, Mancini is exposing what governments prefer to keep hidden. For others, his account is an exaggeration that distorts reality. What remains certain is that, nearly two years into the war, the events in Khan Yunis reveal deep uncertainty about Hamas’ capabilities and the limits of what Israel and its allies are willing to disclose—and raise difficult questions about how much of the truth is reaching the public.