The conflict between Israel and Hamas is quickly turning into a global online war.
Iran, Russia and, to a lesser extent, China have used state media and the world’s major social media platforms to support Hamas and undermine Israel, while denigrating Israel’s main ally, the United States.
Iran’s proxies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have also joined the online fight, along with extremist groups, such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, that were previously at odds with Hamas.
The avalanche of online propaganda and disinformation is greater than anything seen before, according to government officials and independent researchers, a reflection of the world’s geopolitical divide.
“This is being seen by millions, hundreds of millions of people around the world,” said Rafi Mendelsohn, vice president of Cyabra, a social media intelligence company in Tel Aviv, “and it is impacting the war in a way that is probably as effective as any other tactic on the ground.” Cyabra has documented at least 40,000 bots or inauthentic accounts online since Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza on October 7.
The content – visceral, emotionally charged, politically biased and often false – has stoked anger and even violence far beyond Gaza, raising fears that it could inflame a broader conflict. Iran, while denying any involvement in the Hamas attack, has threatened the same, and its Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian warned of retaliation on “multiple fronts” if Israeli forces persist in Gaza.
“It’s like everyone is involved,” said Moustafa Ayad, executive director for Africa, the Middle East and Asia at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The institute, a nonprofit research organization in London, last week detailed influence campaigns by Iran, Russia and China.
The campaigns do not appear to be coordinated, U.S. and other government officials and experts said, although they did not rule out cooperation.
While Iran, Russia and China have different motivations for backing Hamas against Israel, they have pushed the same issues since the war began. They do not limit themselves to providing moral support, officials and experts said, but also organize overt and covert information campaigns to amplify each other and expand the global reach of their views through multiple platforms in multiple languages.
The Spanish arm of RT, the Russian global television network, for example, recently republished a statement by the Iranian president calling the explosion at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza on October 17 an Israeli war crime, despite That Western intelligence agencies and independent agencies have since said that a missile that failed from Gaza was the most likely cause of the explosion.
Another Russian overseas news outlet, Sputnik India, cited a “military expert” who said, without evidence, that the United States provided the bomb that destroyed the hospital. Posts like these have garnered tens of thousands of views.
“We are in an undeclared information war with authoritarian countries,” James P. Rubin, director of the State Department’s Center on Global Engagement, said in a recent interview.
From the first hours of its attack, Hamas has employed a broad and sophisticated media strategy, inspired by groups such as the Islamic State. Its agents spread graphic images through bot accounts originating in places like Pakistan, circumventing Hamas bans on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter, according to Cyabra researchers.
A profile on One post featured a cartoon claiming a double standard: Palestinian resistance to Israel was considered terrorism, while Ukraine’s fight against Russia was self-defense.
Officials and experts who track disinformation and extremism have been surprised by how quickly and widely Hamas’ message has spread online. That feat was almost certainly fueled by the emotional intensity of the Israeli-Palestinian issue and by graphic images of violence, captured in near real time with cameras carried by Hamas gunmen. It was also fueled by extensive botnets and, soon after, official accounts belonging to governments and state media in Iran, Russia and China, amplified by social media platforms.
