Denial, Deception and Distortion: The ‘Atrocity Propaganda’ War in the Israel-Hamas Conflict – The Wire

On October 10, journalist Nicole Zideck from i24NEWS, an Israeli news channel – posted on X (formerly Twitter) that ‘40 babies [were] murdered.’ Thus, the apocalyptic nightmare began.

She stated, “I see in the distance; bodies being covered, babies – their heads cut off.” Slowly, the disinformation escalated out, metamorphosing into “40 babies/toddlers beheaded/decapitated.” The journalist was reporting after the Hamas-led attack from Kfar Aza, a kibbutz located in Southern Israel, a quarter mile away from Gaza.

The claim of murdering 40 babies was validated by David Ben Zion, Deputy Commandee of Unit 71.

But Basim Naim, an official with Hamas’ information office, firmly ‘denied’  the allegations and the western media bias. When questioned about her controversial viral tweet, Nicole Xideck called it “sickening.”

CNN later broadcast this news, stating, “The Israeli Prime Minister’s office has confirmed the story that babies and toddlers were found with their heads cut off.”

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden, stated that he had “seen the bodies of decapitated bodies” of babies, but later White House retracted the statement, stating “US officials and the president have not seen pictures or confirmed such reports independently.”

But the damage was already done.

On October 12, CNN Journalist Sara Sidner tweeted, “Yesterday the Israeli PM’s office said that it had confirmed Hamas beheaded babies & children while we were live on the air. The Israeli government now says today it CANNOT confirm babies were beheaded. I needed to be more careful with my words and I am sorry.’ 

Later, that day, the Israeli PM office tweeted photos of charred body remains of baby, shown mostly to Antony Blinken, United States Secretary of State. But this time, White House did not immediately dish the dirt. 

Even right-wing US columnist Ben Shapiro faced a massive backlash after he posted an image of a “burnt Jewish baby” – an AI doctored image as confirmed by aiornot.com, an artificial intelligence image classification and authenticity detection platform. 

On October 14, investigative journalist Sulaiman Ahmed, tweeted of a ‘Child Genocide in Gaza’ and of 614 Palestinian children having been allegedly murdered by the Israeli IOF Forces. He used a photo by photographer Diaa El Din, who had covered the Gouta chemical attacks in Syria in 2013. Later, he claimed he had done so so as to be able to symbolically showcase child mortality. He also stated that due to heightened scrutiny on his X account, he would make diligent efforts to ensure that all images and photos are appropriately linked to the text of the post.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government claimed on October 14 that Hamas was ‘deceiving’ the public by ‘passing off’ a doll as a slain four-year-old child from Gaza. This claim was shared by social media accounts of Embassy of Israel in France and Austria, Israeli activist Yoseph Haddad, and others. After serious investigation, AltNews stated that the child’s name was Omar Bilal Al-Banna, who was killed by Israeli air strike in Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood, located in east of Gaza City.

It further said, “It is unfortunate that we find ourselves in a position where we must fact-check a claim that portrays a deceased child as a doll.”

On October 16, even BBC had to clarify that it misled the public about pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the UK. On October 18, IDF claimed that its initial investigation shows explosion in hospital in Gaza was caused by a failed Hamas rocket launch. An old video (previously shared in 2022) was again shared with a claim that Hamas failed at the launch of a rocket and misfired at a hospital in Gaza. Later, a sock-puppet account of Farida Khan (now removed), claiming to be an Al Jazeera journalist, also claimed that it was a Hamas-led attack, which was later debunked by another journalist Yarno Ritzen – of Al Jazeera itself.

Later that day, Hananya Naftali, a leading Israeli Jewish influencer, posted on X that “IDF does not bomb hospitals, I assumed Israel was targeting one of the Hamas bases in Gaza.”

This was debunked by Jeffery Kay, a retired psychologist, blogger, author of “Cover-up at Guantanamo” who posted that from October 7-15, “90 incidents were recorded, at least 15 incidents reported health facilities being extensively damaged, 28 health workers killed and 23 injured by explosive weapons used by Israeli forces in Gaza. In addition, in the West Bank, at least 24 health workers have been detained while responding to health emergencies.”

This was further validated by journalist Dan Cohen, who posted images of news reports about Israel striking Gaza hospital. 

Raf Sanchez, a journalist at NBC while reporting from Ashdod, Israel, stated, “This is a very fast-moving and chaotic situation. The Palestinian Health Ministry is saying that the Al Ahli Hospital in Northern Gaza took a direct strike from Israeli aircraft. At minimum, hundreds of people are dead at the hospital. The strike or explosion seems to have taken place in the courtyard in front of the hospital, were families were gathering. The Israeli Military is saying that time the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller terrorist group, that operates alongside Hamas in Gaza, was in the midst of firing a barrage of rockets into Israel. This is an absolute classic fog of war situation and we should be clear. Our teams are not able to verify as the Israeli and Egyptian borders are sealed. Israeli military at this point is not providing an evidence to back up its claims that this was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. This kind of death toll is normally what you not associate with Palestinian rockets.” 

Absence of a code

This flooding of fake-news and atrocity propaganda, especially through X has created a viral cacophony. The news laws regarding European Union’s Digital Services Act required every social media to be responsible for their content and remove all illegal or questionable content by 25th August. Though many tech companies are in transition, as pointed by The Guardian’s Brussel-based correspondent Lisa O’Carroll, “Musk quit the Code of Practice compliance.”

The European Union also sent a formal letter to the X owner on October 10, over “indications” that his “platform is being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU” in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Meanwhile, an account of Qatar Affairs that stated a false story on Qatar suspending gas pipelines was suspended after its claim was found to be rooted in falsehood. Videos of several Lebanese protestors scaling the wall in Israel have been further decontextualised. They are actually from May 2021. 

Who believes in falsehoods and lies in war-torn regions? Do the victims, in terms of proximity and exposure, believe these falsehoods?

What causes this directional bias, motivated reasoning and psychological impulses to propagate falsehoods?

The scholarly research of Dagher, Silverman and Kaltenthaler in Seeing Is Disbelieving: The Depths and Limits of Factual Misinformation in War, explains how from World War II to the invasion of Iraq, war has always been rife with lies. They have questioned how the proliferation of fake news, misinformation and pervasive rumours eventually initiates, catalyses and provokes further violent aggression. This dystopian nihilism can be contextualised in the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, where the concoction of geo-politics of emotions and real politik, has furthered the diabolic interests of ‘atrocity propaganda.’

Marc Owen Jones, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University at Doha stated the five strategies of disinformation warfare.

First, say something else.

Secondly, ensure enough people use false information so that it becomes a ‘narrative.’

Thirdly, when it becomes a narrative, it then has to be ‘debunked’, unfairly putting burden of proof on journalists, etc.

Fourthly, debunking comes too late.

Lastly, the damage is done. 

Another narrative put forward by Minna Aslama Horowitz, an expert on digital rights and advocacy, Central European University, has explained how “disinformation often through cyberwars and information disorder is manifested in many frontiers and for numerous reasons, including monetary gain and political power. An individual’s frustrations about social and economic conditions can turn into the fear, hatred, and vitriol that prompt simple acts of digital violence, such as creating, commenting on, and sharing rumors, falsehoods, and hate speech. Hence, information wars have many more soldiers than do cyberwars.”

Scholars Ilan Manor and Corneliu Bjola have explained that currently we are witnessing the age of ‘post reality’ which is characterised by states fracturing, contesting and assaulting reality. The driving force behind ‘post-reality’ is digitalisation through which states create a world of competing realities which erode social cohesion, amplify social tensions, drive social frustration and prevent individuals from making sense of the world around them. 

So, now that we are tightly incarcerated in the world of falsehoods, propaganda, deep-fakes, sock-puppets and voice clones, how do we understand what is true? The Israel-Hamas conflict has become a mouthpiece for Islamophobia and further causing divisions between Judaism and Islam. Martyrdom and political violence, cloaked by religious propaganda has added fuel to this ‘post-reality’ we live in – an apocalyptic nightmare where human lives are rendered meaningless in invisible ignominy and hatred. The debates on asymmetrical balance of power and the apartheid occupation of Israel through illegal settlements are being replaced by the politics of deception, denial and distortion.

As I write this, the world has forgotten that on December 7, 2022, an Israeli Zionist soldier Yosed Diamont, in an interview to Israeli Channel Hot 8, openly confessed, “We put Palestinians in cages and killed them. One of us raped a 16-year-old girl; some of us ran after them with flame throwers and burned them.” Or that as of today, the death toll in Gaza has risen to 4,079 with more than 15,000 wounded. And this is just the beginning of the end. 

Dr. Shubhda Chaudhary is a West Asia political analyst and editor at the Centre for India West Asia Dialogue.