In security footage, young Israeli woman ‘beats up’ 3 men harassing her

A female Krav Maga instructor on Tuesday posted what appeared to be security footage from a bar, which showed her beating up three guys who harassed her. The footage had been viewed over 200,000 times on her Facebook page by Wednesday evening.

But the apparent spectacular assertion of female protection turned out to have been staged — to encourage women to learn self-defense.

Gili Ganani, a 19-year-old Israel Defense Forces soldier, uploaded the video to Facebook with a caption reading: “I appear in this clip from security footage in a pub. I waited for friends, and some [people] decided to take advantage of the situation.”

In the video, Ganani is shown spurning the advances of a man at a bar. When she returns from the bathroom, the man grabs her hand, and she shrugs him off. He proceeds to grab her by the neck — at which point Ganani unleashes her Krav Maga skills and beats him up, as well as his two friends, who also lunge at her.

“Thanks to my trainer Guy Dar KMM, who taught me how to get out of these situations,” she wrote. KMM stands for Krav Maga Maleh, or full contact Krav Maga.

The video then went viral, and by Wednesday morning, Ganani admitted it was fraudulent.

“It’s important for me to clarify that I am a black belt, have been training for many years in Krav Maga and am a certified instructor, but the clip is fake,” she posted, praising those who “noticed.”

Ganani said the purpose of the clip was to raise awareness “about the importance of self-defense for women and men.”

“Especially at this time, when every day we hear about harassment (and not only against women),” she wrote.

Krav Maga black-belt Gili Ganani (screen capture: Channel 2)