Spotify Wrapped: Anger after Israel trumpets ‘military accomplishments’ in parody playlist

As thousands of people share their favourite artists and guilty-pleasure tracks from Spotify Wrapped, Israel’s army has turned its military assault on Gaza and Lebanon, which has killed nearly 45,000 Palestinians and 4,000 Lebanese since October 2023, into a parody of the feature, causing widespread anger and criticism.

Spotify Wrapped is an annual listening recap eagerly awaited by subscribers, where the global music streaming service creates personalised summaries of their music habits as well as fun facts about their musical preferences presented in a colourful slide deck.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the official Israeli military account posted an image with the accompanying text: “Thought we would share our year, wrapped.”

In a Spotify-inspired playlist, the image listed “operational accomplishments” including the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar.

Mock tracks included “19,000+ Terrorists Eliminated” under the album “Bye Bye Bye”, a reference to a popular NSYNC song.

“Turning death and destruction into a Spotify Wrapped parody? This is grotesque on a whole new level,” responded one user.

“Celebrating violence like it’s a greatest hits album only highlights how far the humanity has been stripped out of this conflict. War crimes as ‘accomplishments’? Shameful.”

Many users compiled their own Spotify Wrapped-style visuals with statistics about Israel’s assaults in the region.

“Don’t be shy, post your real one,” another user shared, alongside a list that read: “Your top war crimes: Killing over 100,000 people in Gaza, displacing millions in Gaza, leaving n0 functioning hospitals in Gaza, destroying over 80% of all buildings in Gaza, causing mass starvation in Gaza.”

On Instagram, a carousel titled “Israel’s 2024 Wrapped” received over half a million likes.

“Israel’s 2024 Spotify wrapped just dropped. A year full of ethnic cleansing and genocide,” the post read.

“In the past year alone… you committed a genocide murdering 184,000+ Palestinians, and have still continued doing so with impunity,” the post continued, referring to the estimation by a letter published in the British medical journal, the Lancet.

“In the IDF [Israeli army] ‘protecting your civilians’ is genociding against the innocent and then making a Spotify Wrapped meme about it,” commented another user. 

Some pro-Israeli accounts appeared to enjoy the post.

One user commented: “Idk, I would push up Pagers – song to the top 5” referring to the Lebanon pager attacks that saw thousands of pagers explode across the country, killing at least 37 people, including children.

A new report by Amnesty International has concluded that Israel is carrying out a genocide in the Gaza Strip, arguably the highest profile rights group to conclude Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the definition of genocidal acts as laid out under the Genocide Convention.

Israel is also facing accusations of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes before international courts.

The International Court of Justice in May issued a preliminary ruling that it was plausible that Israel had breached the Genocide Convention.

As an emergency measure, it ordered Israel to ensure that its army refrained from genocidal acts against Palestinians and halt its offensive on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, steps which were not taken. 

Israeli forces have killed over 44,500 Palestinians in 14 months of war on Gaza, with thousands more missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

Nearly 70 percent of victims are children and women, according to the UN.