From Front Lines to Front Page: Two Battlefields - Same War
September 3, 2025 - Issue #84
At 6:30 am on October 7, 2023, Hamas’ terrorists crossed into Israel by foot, in vehicles, and even by riding motor-powered hang gliders. Equipped with assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, and other weapons of modern war—they savagely raped, burned, and slaughtered Israeli civilians and military personnel alike. Not just content with slaking their blood lust, they came equipped with other equally important weapons of modern warfare— smartphones and GoPros. Using those devices in service of the parallel information war Hamas thirsted to fight, those murderers recorded their massacre and kidnapping of frightened Israeli civilians.
Meanwhile, while its butchers rampaged inside Israel, Hamas’ messaging operation went into high gear.
Forty-four minutes after Hamas’ boots first hit Israeli ground, Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades terror army used its Telegram channel to notify the world of its terror attack on Israel.
Minutes after, Hamas issued several posts on its press channel.
Then, at 7:30 a.m., came a short clip of an Israeli building in flames, followed by an Al-Qassam Brigades’ ten-minute video purporting to justify the attack which a few minutes later was shared by Hamas’ press arm.
Two hours and twenty minutes after the attack started, Al-Qassam Brigades shared gruesome imagery of its terrorists killing Israelis followed by a more graphic video collage that Hamas’ press channel pushed out to the world.
Then came even more grisly content that including captives screaming and begging for their lives while being carried back to Gaza, and Israeli civilians being shot at gunpoint.
For a while, this raw material served as the only source of news for people worldwide and Israeli civilians desperately seeking news about their loved ones. Within a few hours, Al-Qassam Brigades’ distribution list increased by over fifty percent. Within days, more than 600,000 subscribers signed up to receive what Al-Qassam Brigades dished out. Other Gazan terrorist entities, wanting credit too, issued statements crowing about their participation.
By October 10, terror armies in Gaza pushed out almost 6,000 Telegram posts that in turn were reposted over and over to a worldwide audience, some of whom were horrified by the atrocities but of which far too many cheered on the perpetrators. These posts included footage of multiple IDF soldiers executed at close range, a Thai worker bludgeoned to death and almost decapitated by a garden hoe, a family being held at gunpoint on a Facebook livestream, and more videos of terrified individuals being taken back into Gaza. These graphic materials served as the main source of information for both global audiences and Israelis worried about their loved ones.
According to Cyabra—a firm dedicated to fighting online disinformation—during the first forty-eight hours after Hamas stormed across Gaza’s border with Israel, twenty-five percent of the social media accounts disseminating information about the attack were fake, created to further Hamas’ false narrative. Cumulatively, these accounts numbered more than 40,000, spread out on X, Facebook, Tick Tock, etc. Worse even than the number of them was their proclivity for grievous harm. Unlike most human created accounts, fake accounts established through technical means work assiduously to spread the word their designers seek to promote—in this case an attempt to portray “Hamas as humane, strategic and justified for conducting its deadly rampage in southern Israel.” From the safety of their digital nests, those false accounts pushed out their nefarious slant worldwide. One fake account, silent before October 7, disseminated 700 tweets over the next two days. Other fake accounts created a form of legitimacy for themselves by publishing harmless posts before October 7 and then twisted 180 degrees to promote Hamas’ lies. All told, these accounts generated 312,000 messages and hundreds of millions of views in the first days of the war—convincing some and confusing others. It was all coordinated as part of Hamas’ information war strategy designed to run parallel with its October 7 invasion and aftermath.
What you Just read are the opening paragraphs of the the book I am now writing, tentatively titled: Israel – From Front lines to Frontpage: Two Battlefields, Same War (targeted for publishing by the end of the year). The book explains why Israel is losing the information war that it finds itself in and details a strategy for reversing course. But to find the path forward it is important to understand how Israel’s enemies are waging their winning propaganda battle. One thing that has astounded me, is Hamas’ ability to direct the conversation towards Israel’s response rather than Hamas’ heinous crimes and refusal to surrender. That is why the revelations about Hamas’ propaganda army aired this week by Doron Kadosh, a reporter from Galei Tzahal (also known as Galatz), fascinated me. Now, we know by virtue of Hamas’ deeds the importance it attaches to beguiling the world.
Hamas’ Propaganda Army
On August 30, 2025, a targeted Israeli airstrike killed forty-year-old Abu Obeida, Hamas’ military spokesperson since 2007. Obeida was a familiar, popular figure who always appeared in videos with his face covered by a red keffiyeh. He made his first public appearance in 2002 during the Second Intifada and achieved more prominence when he announced the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006. Nevertheless, when I first heard of Obeida’s death, I did not appreciate the significance of it.
Now I do.
Obeida brilliantly oversaw Hamas’ propaganda effort and was involved, for the last two decades, in managing the information campaign aligned with every miliary action Hamas engaged. As part of his plan to fight an information war on Hamas’ behalf, he recruited and put in place what David Bender, the author of Lens & Land: Dispatches from Israel, who first alerted me to Obeida’s significance, appropriately called “propaganda terrorists.” In 2014, Hamas had integrated 400 of them within its military structures. By October 7, 2023, Hamas had trained and then sprinkled 1,500 propaganda terrorists throughout Hamas’ military units and command centers. This was almost twice the number of people the IDF employs in its Spokesperson’s unit and related units.
Of the 1,500 propaganda terrorists, Hamas placed 1,000 of them in its fighting battalions, each of which had a deputy commander for propaganda. The battalions were then organized into larger brigade structures. Each brigade had a propaganda director reporting directly to Abu Obeida. Obeida made sure that the embedded 1,000, called “operational documenters,” had received training in field video documentation and possessed the equipment necessary for doing it in a professional manner that far surpassed any IDF field training and doctrine at the time. On October 7, and thereafter, they took GoPros to the battlefields where they filmed Hamas’ terrorists in action. Their raw footage was then processed into usable propaganda clips by video editors in brigade “publicity departments” hidden in schools, hospitals, and other civilian buildings. All they needed to accomplish that was laptops and internet connections.
Elsewhere, 400 more propaganda terrorists toiled away in different hidden centers in the Gaza Strip. Some, presumably with greater technical skill, converted the propaganda clips into propaganda videos. Others monitored Israeli media for tidbits that they could use to further enhance Hamas’ propaganda efforts.
All of this was under the close direction of Abu Obeida. He also decided which hostages would be videoed, what would be said by them, and how they would be filmed. Then, when some were released, Obeida orchestrated the process—including telling the hostages what they must say at the macabre ceremonies he crafted and provided them with “release certificates” and “gifts” all designed to further traumatize Israel’s domestic audience. Over the last few days, Obeida was deeply engaged in developing a plan to stop the IDF from conquering Gaza City by using the hostages Hamas still holds to undercut Israel’s willingness to continue the campaign.
Obeida’s death was a blow to Hamas even though it still has within its ranks an estimated five senior leaders capable of taking charge of its information campaign and more than 1,000 live propaganda terrorists. Yet Obeida’s experience, and effectiveness, would seem difficult to replace. This view is echoed by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, who wrote, “Moving forward, Hamas’s psychological warfare, media operations, and public relations will never be the same after the death of this significant figure,” and “I don’t think most Western audiences and policy commentators are aware of the blow that Hamas just experienced with the elimination of its most public figurehead.”
My Take
David Bender succinctly wrote, “Israel is fighting two wars at once: one on the battlefield, and another in the global arena of perception. The first is measured in territory and casualties; the second in headlines, hashtags, and international opinion.”
Hamas long ago recognized the truth of what Bender wrote. It understands that its most effective weapon is to tell the story of the war it started in its own way. Short of manpower and military strength, Hamas envisioned creation of a worldwide emotional shield equipped with a sword of withering criticism to protect the organization and enable it to achieve its goals. Therefore, Hamas devoted a huge amount of manpower and critical thinking to the effort. As a result, for two years we have been assailed by videos and photos that show a slanted, one-sided view of events in Gaza. Doron Kadosh’s reporting makes clear the importance Hamas attached to that effort and its structure for doing so—one thousand people in the field taking massive amounts of video day after day, hundreds toiling to turn their voluminous product into emotional stories designed to twist public opinion, all led by one man with a perverse vision has succeeded, in conjunction with other nefarious and naïve actors, in turning much of the world against Israel.
Now, the hour is late. So many have already turned against Israel and many more are turning—influenced by the constant impact of manipulated truths and creative falsehoods that compels reminding ourselves of the old saying, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe It.“
Therefore, against the daily cascade of fabrications and accusations, playing Whac-A-Mole is not sufficient. Nor is eventually explaining. It should not have taken almost two years for Hamas’ propaganda structure to be revealed. It should not have required an investigative reporter to reveal the BBC, New York Times, and other news outlets’ callous disregard for the truth when they published pictures of sick children and passed them off as representative of starvation in Gaza. The U.N. should have been exposed long ago in clear and continuous exposes for the sick, biased organization that it now is. On October 7, Israel suffered a stinging defeat because it relied on defense rather than attacking the growing threat. No more.
It is high time for Israel and us to launch a relentless information war offensive just as innovative and comprehensive as Israel’s June attack on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs or the pager attack on Hezbollah. In this information war we must anticipate and strike not just reply. We must throw our enemies on their heels rather than just try to thwart their blows. Anything less will fail—to the detriment of Israel’s future prospects—and ours.
I am sick of just responding. Aren’t you?
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The Gap Between Israel’s Strategic-Security Improvement and its International and Media Standing—Written by Yaakov Lappin for the Alma Education and Research Center—August 31, 2025
David P. Silverman: My Journey from Anti-Zionism to Zionism—Written by David Silverman for his Facebook Page and reprinted with permission by in Israel Diaries—August 22, 2025
'System Shock': The Secret IAF Protocol That Brought Iran's Air Defenses to its Knees—Written by Amir Bohbot for the Jerusalem Post—August 23, 2025
'The Situation is Fragile': The IDF Outpost Reshaping Security in Southern Lebanon—Written by Yair Kraus for YNet News—August 19, 2025
Elite Commando Unit Hunting Gaza Terrorists: 'Target Went to Sleep – We Struck'—Written by Hanan Greenwood for Israel Hayom—August 29, 2025
How Israel Can Defend Itself in the Future—Written by Jonathan Schanzer for Commentary—September 2025
Shielded by Fire: Middle East Air Defense During the June 2025 Israel-Iran War—Written by Ari Cicurel for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America—August 21, 2025
Brave Young Activist Speaks From Inside Gaza About His Plans to Topple Hamas—Written by Paul Martin and Andy Lines for Mirror—September 1, 2025
Gaza's Media Martyrs are a Mockery of Journalism—Written by Nachum Kaplan for Future of Jewish—August 27, 2025
Reporting Back for Duty: Older Reservists Step up in Israel’s Time of Need—Written by Stav Levaton for Times of Israel—August 22, 2025
In IDF-Controlled Rafah, an Armed Clan’s School Plants Seeds of a Hamas-Free Future—Written by Nurit Yohanan for Times of Israel—August 21, 2025
Israel’s Struggle with Hezbollah—A War Without End is now available in eBook and hardback format on Amazon and IngramSpark. This compelling narrative explores Hezbollah’s origins and cancerous growth, traces Israel’s response, and reveals Israel’s present readiness to meet Hezbollah’s challenge.
Cliff Sobin
Important Link—Alma Research and Education Center: Understanding the Security Challenges on Israel’s Northern Border
I’m afraid the problem runs much deeper than simply being defensive or offensive. There are interests at play — the interests of billions of people and massive propaganda machines aligned with those interests. If you can’t get others to listen, your truth doesn’t matter, because no one will hear it. To win this battle, we need to change the rules of the game.
We must ensure that communication channels to Western populations remain open, and that numbers alone don’t determine whose views are heard — every perspective must be presented fairly. Just as any individual in the West has the right to be heard in a court of law, every Western nation must have the right to be heard in the court of public opinion across the West. And that right must be guaranteed by Western governments.
Only then will Israel have a chance to make its case. Only then will the different voices within the West be able to listen to one another, find common ground, and stand together against the approaching storm.
Eye-opening