From a fake nurse to a fake list of hostage guards, Israel’s attempts at disinformation are becoming less and less convincing in what many interpret as a loss of control over the war narrative in Gaza.
Israel’s official Arabic account linked to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a selfie video of a “Palestinian” nurse condemning Hamas for taking over al-Shifa hospital in the Gaza Strip on November 11th. But many things in the video didn’t make sense.
A nurse from Hollywood
From a misplaced accent that sounded like it fell out of an Israeli soap opera to perfectly written Israel Defense Forces (IDF)terminology that included accusations that Hamas was stealing fuel and morphine.
Then there’s the pristine white coat that looked like it just came back from the dry cleaners, the unconvincing sounds of bombs falling that sounded like internet samples. However, Hamas did not steal her makeup, which was flawless.
The logo of the Palestinian Ministry of Health is strategically placed in the background, but no one at al-Shifa Hospital has ever seen a nurse before.
Soon, the amount of ridicule directed at those sharing the video reached such a level that an Israeli Arab account deleted their tweet, and the social network X posted a note that it was a propaganda video.
A calendar and a hair tie as key evidence
On November 13th, Daniel Hagari, the IDF spokesman, appeared in a new video. This time there were no nurses, but Hagari stayed in the nursery.
Hagari claimed he was standing in the basement of al-Rantisi hospital in Gaza. He also claimed that Hamas is holding hostages there. Among his evidence for this claim, there were the curtains that cover not the windows, but the wall, but also the hair tie.
But he saves his “best” evidence for last, showing a piece of paper taped to the wall. Arabic script is written on the paper.
“This is a list of guards, where each terrorist writes his name, and each terrorist has his own shift, which guards the people who were here,” said Hagari. But it wasn’t a list of names, it was a list of days of the week.
These are not anomalies
This disinformation is not an anomaly, but a series of increasingly desperate attempts to try to justify the growing number of civilians killed in Gaza. Israel, which has enjoyed broad support from most Western allies, especially the United States (U.S.), is aware that U.S. President Joe Biden is under increasing pressure to stop the killing.
Israel’s usual strategy has been to try to claim that the Palestinians are exaggerating or inventing their victims, as they call it “Pallywood” tactics. For example, on October 14th, an Israeli account run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that Palestinians were trying to pass off a doll as a dead Palestinian child.
But this was a lie. The boy, 4-year-old Omar Bilal al-Banna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike.
On November 12th, the IDF announced that it had found an intact copy of Mein Kampf in a child’s bedroom in Gaza. This came shortly after an Israeli account also published a cartoon showing how Israel raises its children with love, while Gazans are raised on hate.
Of particular concern is the fact that Israel seeks to dehumanize Palestinian children. After all, if they can’t deny killing them, they can try to make children worth killing.
In Israel’s increasingly desperate disinformation campaign, we can see that a goal is to justify or legitimize statistics that are impossible to justify. The fact that of the 11,000 civilians killed in Gaza since October 7th, over 4,500 were children, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
