When scores of foreign journalists were shepherded into a room in Tel Aviv and shown government-compiled footage, depicting acts of violence and mutilation that occurred during the Hamas incursion in southern Israel on October 7, it marked a watershed moment in information warfare during the conflict.
Israel – in the wake of the bloodiest day in the country’s history and its relentless retaliatory bombardment on the besieged Gaza Strip – wanted to take hold of a narrative that had seen an influx of both misinformation and disinformation, as supporters on either side aimed to garner support and vilify their adversaries.
In the era of social media, the Israel-Hamas conflict has been marred by a surge of misinformation over the past one month. Misleading videos, translation errors, and outright false claims have taken center stage, often overshadowing accurate reporting from the region. It has brought new meaning to the Fog of War, with truth being one of the earliest casualties.
Experts have told Al Arabiya English that social media has long played a critical role in battles. Still, increased internet access, the proliferation of smartphones and the misuse of social media have led to an unprecedented information war in the Middle Eastern conflict.
Executive director of US consultancy firm SITE Intelligence Group, Rita Katz, described the level of disinformation about the Israel-Hamas war as “staggering.”
“I’ve been tracking conflicts for several decades. I’ve never seen anything like this,” she told Al Arabiya English. “It’s even making its way into respected news outlets in ways I never thought possible.”
Since the deadliest day in its history, Israel has been quick to set straight what they say is the true story.
To combat disinformation, FakeReporter – a disinformation monitoring organization based in Israel, founded by a team of researchers, activists, and OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) experts – is running a war room staffed with 2,500 volunteers across Israel. The volunteers flag and report suspicious, malicious and graphic content to the platforms themselves. FakeReporter also debunks misleading narratives on social media.
In a slick media campaign, Israel has repeatedly published graphic imagery of the massacres of October 7 and the plight of the hostages taken by Hamas to justify their retaliatory actions.
Lior Haiat, spokesperson of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Al Arabiya English that Hamas “lies to its public and the entire world” and that it will work to combat their “propaganda.”
“Hamas uses the media and social networks as a tool to spread false propaganda and incitement to hide war crimes and the crimes against humanity committed by Hamas terrorists.”
Haiat said Israel acts in several ways to fight the lies of Hamas, but claimed “the main way is presenting the truth to the world.”
“In recent weeks, we have been showing a 47-minute film taken entirely from the body cameras found on the Hamas terrorists who participated in the October 7 massacre,” he said. “We want the world to see exactly what kind of enemy Israel is fighting.”
Haiat says there are dozens of examples of misinformation that Hamas spreads – often by using images from other regions of the world and images created with artificial intelligence – in order to show Israeli harm to civilians.
Haiat gives an example of the explosion at Al-Ahli hospital in the Gaza Strip on October 17.
“Minutes after the explosion, Hamas accused Israel of bombing the hospital and less than an hour later reported at least 500 dead from the attack. A short time later, the facts became clear: The explosion occurred due to a missile that was fired by Islamic Jihad terrorists towards Israel, which fell inside the Gaza Strip,” Haiat said, adding that the number of casualties amounted to several dozen only.
Unfortunately, many media outlets around the world published Hamas’ lies without any investigation. Only hours later did the media correct the news and publish the truth: That Islamic Jihad had fired the rocket, and that Hamas had lied.
Another issue is the denial of the massacre, says Haiat.
“Since the October 7 massacre, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered, butchered and executed more than 1,400 Israelis, including babies, children, women and the elderly. They did not differentiate between Jews and Muslims. They came to kill us all in monstrous, horrific activities. Yet, unfortunately, Hamas has been trying to promote a campaign to deny the atrocities,” Haiat added.
Head of communications at FakeReporter, Yotam Frost, told Al Arabiya English that the war between Israel and Hamas extends beyond the battleground. It unfolds daily on social media.
False claims, misinformation
Recent weeks have seen false claims, including allegations of “crisis actors” staging scenes of carnage and US Marines joining the fighting on the ground in Gaza.
They gave multiple examples that have since been debunked, including a video currently circulating online, purportedly showing Russian President Vladimir Putin announcing support for Palestine. However, the video in question is from 2021 and captures Putin’s remarks during Russia’s Victory Day military parade, where he spoke about the defeat of Nazism. Russia has, so far, issued measured criticism of both sides in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Despite the claims, the video does not contain any reference to the ongoing Middle East conflict.
Another video shared on social media, seemingly depicting an Israeli tank being hit in an airstrike, is not genuine, AP found. The footage is computer-generated and was extracted from a trailer for the video game “Squad,” released in December 2022.
Another video circulating online, purportedly showing bodies moving beneath white cloths, was actually found to be from 2013 and captures students protesting at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. It has been wrongly presented as evidence that Palestinians and Hamas are faking deaths during the Israel-Hamas conflict. In reality, the video has no connection with the current situation in the Middle East and was shot nearly a decade ago during a protest in Egypt.
These unverified claims circulated widely, fueled by a news reporter’s statement on a live broadcast and information from the Israeli government. However, a White House spokesperson clarified later that neither the president nor US officials had independently confirmed or seen such images or reports.
Gaza hospital bombing
Among the conflict’s most contentious topics to date has been the bombing of Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.
In a misleading video circulated online, falsely claiming that it showed a failed Hamas rocket hitting the hospital. This video, initially from 2022, had no direct connection to the recent hospital incident.
As both sides sought to assign blame for the tragedy, social media users shared posts purporting to show a screenshot of an Israeli army Facebook account stating in Arabic that it had “decided to bomb” the hospital to “give them euthanasia.”
However, that post did not originate from an official Israeli army account, with a Meta spokesperson confirming to FullFact that the account had since been removed for being “inauthentic.”
As fact-checkers pointed out, Israeli army appears to have just one Arabic language account, which looks very different to what was seen in the posts.
Disinformation ‘inflames emotions’
Katz told Al Arabiya English that this episode highlights the danger of disinformation during crises, especially those involving civilian casualties and war crimes, as it can inflame emotions, fan the fire of online debates and deepen divides.
The media has played a role as a conduit for information about ongoing events in the region. Millions of social media users have relied on thousands of local journalists on the ground in Gaza as sources of information on the ground, providing continued updates through their social media platforms.
However, the sheer amount of information has also paved the way for misinformation.
Social media platforms, said Katz, have played a major role in the problem. She said while disinformation during wars is not new, and certainly not surprising, one thing that’s new with the Israel-Hamas war is that X, formerly known as Twitter, is, in many ways, the central venue where it all goes viral.
“During crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, Twitter was far more aggressive in combatting this content, pushing the fringe conspiracists and trolls onto Telegram and ‘alternative’ social media platforms. Even with the Russia-Ukraine war, most of the globally aimed disinformation action is happening on Telegram, with X being a secondary venue to further disseminate it,” she said.
However, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is far more divisive than any other issue one can think of, Katz added.
As such, people are far more invested in skewing the conversation to favor their “team,” creating an inventive to amplify false information, whether wittingly or otherwise, said Katz.
Katz further said: “Even respected outlets like the New York Times were forced to walk back their reporting about the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital blast, admitting that they took too seriously the dishonest claims of Hamas. This, though, begs the question: Why would reporters give Hamas any more credibility than they would ISIS?”
Frost agrees.
“The rapid dissemination of information today contradicts the essential process of thorough investigation, verification, and the subsequent delivery of reliable information to the public. This was evident in the recent Gaza hospital explosion. It took several hours to probe the bombing’s source before providing accurate information to the public.”
However, during this investigation, disinformation had already gained traction. Fragments of information were widely used in the first few hours to promote allegations against Israel, Frost said.
For example, FakeReporter has witnessed how several high-profile accounts of X were substantiating their claim that Israel was behind the explosion, on a tweet made by a social media advisor to the prime minister’s office, believing it was an official response, Frost said.
“In reality, he couldn’t have had any evidence at that point and was only speculating. In another example, an Israeli journalist shared an old video of a rocket malfunctioning in the sky, raising accusations that Israel was trying to cover up its actions. On that same day, a Facebook page claiming to be an official Israeli army page gloated and took responsibility for the explosion, misleading many. It was a complete fake.”
Frost added: “This highlights the challenge of correcting disinformation once it takes hold, as many tend to cling to their initial beliefs even when confronted with subsequent evidence.”
