In Gaza, a child is killed every 10 minutes. Since October 7, Israel has killed more than 4,000 children. Today, premature babies at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital are dying because the institution is no longer operational after more than a month of Israeli siege and is therefore unable to operate incubators.
Israel knows it risks losing international support for its ongoing child massacre. Western allies like French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who have so far staunchly supported Israel, publicly called on the Israeli government last week to stop killing children, although Macron has since softened his your.
As a result, the Israeli propaganda and disinformation machine is finding new ways to justify the killing of children and the bombing of medical facilities.
Usually, Israel’s first response to accusations of atrocities is denial. When that fails, the second strategy is to blame Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups for Palestinian deaths.
It has not abandoned these strategies, but also attempts to directly link Palestinian children to Hamas and thus seeks to present them – and the places where they seek refuge – as legitimate targets.
Blame Hamas
On November 11, the official Arabic account of the Israeli Foreign Ministry job a video of a nurse, apparently agitated, talking about Hamas invading al-Shifa hospital and taking all the fuel and morphine. She claimed that because Hamas had stolen morphine, she could not use it on a five-year-old child suffering from a fracture.
The video, which was retweeted thousands of times, was clearly fake. No staff members nearby appear to recognize the person depicted, casting doubt on their identity and role. Robert Mackey, journalist at the research firm Forensic Architecture, I spoke to three Doctors Without Borders staff members working at al-Shifa hospital, none of whom recognized her.
The video was almost comical in its absurdity. The nurse spoke with a non-Palestinian accent and her dialogue seemed to perfectly echo the Israeli military’s arguments that Hamas was stealing all the fuel from hospitals.
Additionally, the strategic placement of the Palestinian Ministry of Health logo was an artificial attempt to mislead or create a “honey trap” for open source intelligence. Adding to the suspicions were the original audio bombing effects, her impeccably clean white coat and perfect makeup, all of which seemed out of place in a supposedly disastrous setting.
The aim of the video was clear: to blame Hamas for the children’s suffering and to legitimize the Israeli military’s claims that Hamas uses civilians and children as human shields.
Ultimately, while the Israeli government was challenged by the video, the Foreign Ministry quietly deleted its message – without any explanation.
But spreading disinformation and then deleting it has become routine, which begs the question: Why is the Israeli military’s propaganda so sloppy? After all, doesn’t Israel risk losing its credibility?
No, because the benefits outweigh the costs. The old adage “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes” tells us most of what we need to know about propaganda. The key is not truthfulness, but rather speed and primacy.
Controlling the narrative means spreading information faster than your enemy and sensationalizing that information, whether it’s factual or not. A study showed that 86% of people don’t verify the information they see on social media.
Once a fake goes viral, people who see it are unlikely to see the verified version. The audience for these videos are not astute fact-checkers. In the case of Israel, a large part of the audience is English-speaking Western viewers who do not pick up the fake accents and have no reason to believe that this information is false.
It’s important to remember that propaganda doesn’t have to be sophisticated to be effective – it just has to be fast and sensational. Social media is perfect for this.
Children filled with hatred and reading Mein Kampf
Beyond the Hamas blame, a more sinister step in the legitimization of Israel’s child killing is emerging: the attempt to defame Palestinian children as recipients of Israel’s perverse, anti-Semitic propaganda. Hamas. That Palestinian children are only being trained to become “terrorists.”
On November 5, the official Arabic account of Israel tweeted a cartoon showing that Israel raises its babies with “love”, while Hamas fills Gaza’s babies with “hate”.
Then, on Monday, the official Israeli account managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed the that the Israeli army found a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” in a child’s bedroom in Gaza. Blank, with perfect notes and highlighting, the book’s “discovery” was an attempt to reinforce the narrative that Palestinian children are filled with hatred, are beyond redemption, and are therefore valid targets for murder.
Mein Kampf represents the very embodiment of anti-Semitism. This is Hitler’s autobiography. The importance of this will not escape many Westerners, who are often the target audiences for Israeli propaganda. The use of Mein Kampf, a copy of which was brandished theatrically by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, demonstrates that Israel is trying to portray older Palestinian children as brainwashed anti-Semites – it is a simple tool to promote this story.
Bunker under a children’s hospital
On Monday evening, Israel redoubled its efforts to legitimize its attacks against children. The Israeli army posted a video of its spokesperson Daniel Hagari walking around an alleged Hamas bunker located beneath the Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza. In one of the scenes, Hagari is kneeling near guns, grenades and other weapons, in the background a painting of a tree apparently created by children.
In another video, also from the basement of Rantisi Hospital, Hagari draws attention to a chair and the remains of a rope that he says were used to tie up the hostages. Next, he shows a baby bottle sitting on top of an electrical junction box marked with the World Health Organization.
The juxtaposition of childish innocence in the form of the painting or the bottle with guns serves to legitimize the Israeli narrative of Hamas as inhumane “terrorists” who use children and hospitals as human shields or captives. This is then used to justify Israeli strikes against civilian targets – even if children’s lives are in danger and even if a United Nations organization is involved.
However, the video is clearly a propaganda stunt. Hagari points to a handwritten Arabic painting pinned to the wall. Hagari then says the list names Hamas fighters. “It’s a guard list where each terrorist writes their name, and each terrorist has their own team to guard the people who were here.”
The only problem is that the listing doesn’t say anything like that. It was a list of the days of the week.
Why is Israel doing this?
Over the weekend, Israel offered al-Shifa hospital a meager amount of fuel, after imposing a total blockade on the Gaza Strip since October 7 that has paralyzed medical facilities.
Hospital director Muhammad Abu Salmiya said of the attempted fuel supply that “Israel wants to show the world that it does not kill babies.”
But now that Israel can no longer deny that it is killing Palestinian babies, it is trying to legitimize their killing. In his work on “image restoration theory,” William Benoit calls this “offensiveness reduction.” Simply put, you blame the victim or make the victim seem like they deserve their suffering.
As the death toll rises, so do far-fetched attempts to place blame on innocent victims.
But no amount of fabricated videos or planted “evidence” can obscure the truth. Children are dying by the hundreds in Gaza, their blood shed by Israel’s bombs, bullets and siege.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.