At 17:18 p.m. on 59 October, the face of the war seemed to be changing, and not in our favor, when a rocket exploded at Al Ma'tani Hospital in Gaza's Zeitoun neighborhood. Al Jazeera TV reporters were among the first to arrive in the area, and from there spread to the world that the IDF had caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. Hours passed before Israel issued an official response, but it was focused and left no corners open. The IDF Spokesperson, Brigadier General Daniel Hagari, presented photographs and recordings that proved black on screen that this was a work accident from a failed Islamic Jihad launch, and not a particularly cruel Israeli strike.
He was immediately followed by Lt. Col. Avichai Edrei, head of Arabic communications at the IDF Spokesperson's Office, and presented the evidence to all Arab broadcasters in clear and determined Arabic. The army not only fights the narrow alleys of Khan Yunis, but also advocates in front of a generally hostile and impatient public.
"All the channels in the Arab world – from Qatari Al Jazeera to Emirati Al-Mashhad – broadcast live the IDF Spokesperson's remarks, backed by facts and audio recordings, about how the IDF had nothing to do with the incident," says Lt. Col. Edri about that evening. "Have we succeeded in convincing world public opinion one hundred percent? Not. Have we succeeded in creating an understanding that Hamas is lying? Yes. Dahil Rabak - How were a thousand killed from such a small crater in the hospital parking lot? People worked here all night to produce the press conference in English, French, Arabic, Persian and Hebrew, because when I enlisted, I was taught in the 'Introduction to Hezbollah' classes that the media has endless barrels and that its impact is as bad as a bullet. Integrate it into your task. That's the agenda."
, Photo: Dutz
For the past 18 years, Lt. Col. Edri (41) has dominated the field of Arab propaganda in the IDF Spokesperson's Office. In 2005, Maj. Eitan Arussi was discharged from his position, and just before he left, in September, he had to explain another Hamas work accident in which they wanted to drop the file on us. Then 18 terrorists were killed in an explosion at a parade held in the Jabaliya neighborhood. The report did not know where they would find a replacement for Arussi, so at the last minute they pulled 23-year-old Edri out of his office in Unit 8200.
For years, the IDF Spokesperson belonged to the Intelligence Directorate and was transferred to the Operations Directorate in order to emphasize that media mediation is part of the army's operational effort. Its role is to create legitimacy for military operations, especially vis-à-vis moderate audiences in the Arab world. The fact is that the UAE has not focused on the IDF in recent months, and the coverage, if any, is based mainly on informative information rather than inflammatory opinions.
Thousands of rockets have flown since Lt. Col. Edri entered his office. Today, the propaganda war is not only waged on television networks and in the traditional press, and is rapidly spreading to Facebook pages, the X network (formerly Twitter) and the world of YouTube videos. Every incident requires a quick response, the main thing is not to fall as loot on the other side. "If you want to be a player on this field, you have to create culture, news, an agenda, and on the other hand, if there's an agenda that you didn't create, then at least get into it on time," explains a former IDF Spokesperson's Officer.
Know how to market the area
The head of Arab media is not playing alone on the tough field. Alongside him is an active and lively section, and in recent years his deputy, Major Ella Vaoya (34), a Muslim born in Qalansawe, known in the Arab world as "Captain Ella" for her frequent appearances, has been standing alongside him.
"They know I'm Arab, but there are many who say I'm lying because of the name, and also claim that I don't have the real Arabic accent," she laughs. "Don't worry, I remind them of that all the time. There are also those who are disturbed by the uniform, but in any case will want to listen, and there are also those who look with pride. Yesterday, I glanced at the corner of the questions that are being posed to me. There were women from Morocco, Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, and I saw that some said they saw me as a personal example. This is the place to convey a message, even if it bothers that person. He can take two steps back and think about what we said, no matter if it's a woman or a man they asked."
Lt. Col. Edri displays a Sha'ash flag held by Hamas, Photo: Dutz
The department makes sure to appear in representative uniforms, partly because of the knowledge that in the Arab world, when an officer goes on an official mission, his uniform is ironed and all the war badges are firmly attached to his chest. As far as they are concerned, uniforms convey credibility, and it is not for nothing that during the Arab Spring the slogans that ran in the squares were "The army and the people are one hand."
Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah has any propaganda aimed at the Israeli public, and if videos have already been released from them, they are intended to frighten the public or psychologically fight the other side. But it is impossible to ignore the massive presence of Al Jazeera, the largest network in the Middle East and North Africa, which has been broadcasting for 27 years and does not try to be neutral, certainly not in an iron sword war.
Usually, when an Israeli interviewee goes on the air on Al Jazeera, the interviewers are tough, and more than once the IDF Spokesperson's representatives have warned that there is a delay of a few seconds between the broadcast in Qatar and Israel, and the suspicion is that Doha is buying time to prepare. When the complaints were forwarded, the network said they were looking for a solution to the problem.
Al Jazeera also features several times a day military analyst Fayez al-Dweiri, a former officer in the Jordanian army, explaining through interactive maps how Israel is not winning the battle and Hamas has the upper hand. Perhaps this is a lost war, since some of the senior officials in the network are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
But the IDF Spokesperson's Office continues to cooperate with Al Jazeera, knowing that the distorted relationship can be exploited even now. The fact is that they took advantage of the Qataris' hostility to the Syrian regime to prepare articles about the IDF's preparations for war with Hezbollah, which cooperates with the regime of Bashar Assad. In these cases, the delay also disappeared. The IDF is aware of Al Jazeera's power as a leading news channel. The problem is that from the initial stage of "Iron Swords," the channel focuses on creating a narrative of Hamas victory.
Al-Jazeera will probably not be able to change, but in the daily Arab press, perhaps also as part of the political processes of recent years, there is a change in trend regarding the military confrontation in the Gaza Strip. In the UAE and Bahrain, for example, the war does not always reach the front pages, and if it does, then from a local point of view.
, Photo: Dutz
The popular newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, which is distributed in quite a few Arab countries, often criticizes what happened on 7 October and the destruction Hamas brought to Gaza. In the first week of the war, he even published an article titled "Yahya Sinwar - Your job is to leave the Gaza Strip and save it."
Unlike Al Jazeera, which usually uses videos broadcast by Hamas, the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV station broadcasts videos it receives from the IDF Spokesperson, which also come after it finishes updating its viewers on the economic world, which interests them a little more. Once upon a time, such a war would open editions, and you didn't have to search much to figure out who the "bad guys" in the story were.
In general, the cooperation between the IDF and the Arab media during the fighting has risen to a stage in relations and seems quite strange, certainly compared to days past. In Operation Protective Edge, it was Captain Ella who suggested bringing Arab reporters into the battle zones, but Lt. Col. Edri rejected the idea out of hand. Once again, the deputy offered to market the area, and indeed the IDF invited Arab reporters, although Edri thought that no commander would take them with him into Khan Yunis. It turned out that his predictions were false. Although some members of the Arab media managed to elegantly evade the invitation, claiming that they were afraid, and others explained that their system did not accompany military forces, there were also those who boarded IDF convoys and entered with a vest and helmet.
Among them came journalists from Iran International, who had already visited the Gaza Strip four times during the fighting. Representatives from the BBC appeared in Persian, a channel affiliated with the Iranian opposition, and their entry created a lot of noise in Iran, especially on the regime's platforms, and a reporter from Morocco of France 24 in Arabic landed here, joining IDF forces on the humanitarian axis, alongside soldiers inside the APC.
"In the end, you have to explain that it wasn't us who chose the war and that Hamas brought the destruction, and if you move the population southward, you're not coming to harm it, but Hamas and its infrastructure," Captain Ella explains what is behind the idea. "A difficult picture is something that happens, because we are at war and both sides are suffering. There are many pictures that show and say 'massacre' about them. You have to explain the operation and that Hamas is using the population as human shields. He uses hospitals, mosques. They are shown visually and in recordings from the interrogations that the Shin Bet published. This proves how bad Hamas is for the residents of Gaza, and that whoever is killed is because of them."
"We don't fawn"
Quite a few of the findings that arose in the investigations or were discovered on the bodies of the terrorists were published in the Arab media or on social networks, in order to expose the extent of the horror of that Black Sabbath, and also to emphasize the slogan that has been running since the beginning of the fighting: "Hamas = ISIS."
Thus, for example, the same telephone conversation was published in which a terrorist boasted to his parents how many Jews he murdered on 7 October, and a note found on the body of another terrorist was published with clear instructions on how to act: "You must sharpen the blades of your swords and be pure in your intentions before Allah. Know that the enemy is a disease that has no cure, except the beheading and the uprooting of hearts and livers. Charge at them!"
The IDF Spokesperson's Office noted that Yahya Sinwar's men were mainly disturbed by the branding "Hamas = ISIS." They even spoke out against the people of Gaza to explain what happened that Shabbat and excuse that the mob that entered the kibbutzim, after the Nukhba invasion, was the one who committed the atrocities. When allegations surfaced that women had been raped, they immediately shouted that there was no proof. But the horrific videos filmed by the terrorists have become a central tool in the propaganda apparatus. Lt. Col. Edri went on a Zoom call with online influencers and journalists from the Gulf states, a conversation that was witnessed in real time by about a million people and in which they showed a synopsis of the horror film.
Were those photographs a Hamas propaganda mistake?
Lt. Col. Edri: "As far as their audience is concerned, it's ecstasy, but there are tensions between the audiences. Even when I released a video showing soldiers helping an old woman, some said, 'On Kibbutz Nir Oz, someone asked the grandmother if she wanted a wheelchair?' and that's true. But sometimes you say that if the video serves a great operational effort, it's worth posting. Do you know how many things we reject on the principle that victory comes first, and only after that comes humanitarian aid? We're not fawning."
IDF Spokesperson in Arabic
Lt. Col. Edri often turns to the other side. In each video, it is customary to choose the appropriate language. Spoken Arabic, literary, maybe even the use of slang, depending on the purpose. At the end of November, in an interview with Sky News in Arabic and on the social network X, the IDF Spokesperson in Arabic conveyed a clear message to Hamas: "The babies with orange, red-haired (Bibas family) were abducted in Nir Oz by a Hamas operative, and they are being held in the Khan Yunis area by one of the Palestinian factions."
Lt. Col. Edrei's remarks spread very quickly throughout the Arab media, and three days later Hamas issued a statement stating that the mother Shiri Bibas and the children Ariel and Kfir were not alive, a report that was not verified, but showed that someone on the other side did not remain indifferent to the spokesman's words.
, Photo: Dutz
The atrocities of October 7 are also an opportunity to change momentum in the internal discourse with Israeli Arabs. Not long ago, 150 Muslim clerics from around the country came to one of the military bases to receive a comprehensive explanation of what happened, to convey the matter to their communities and to emphasize that not only Jews were slaughtered, but also Arabs, some of whom were kidnapped.
"The goal was that on Friday, in the sermon before prayers, they would talk about the subject," says Captain Ella, "Some were afraid and some spoke in smaller classes, and this is important, because the emphasis is that the war is against everyone, and the fact is that when I go to an Arab restaurant I often see soldiers being invited to eat for free. Today I see Arabs who want to join the army and they turn to me, ready to volunteer and help."
Touch emotion
Ella and Avichai are very strong in social media activity. They appear there by name, and not under the military body, also to encourage reactions and convey messages personally. Indeed, there are reactions for and against, sometimes extreme, the main thing is to interact. Lt. Col. Edri was a little surprised by the awakening on social media during the war, especially when requests to enlist in the IDF came from Morocco and Sudan. This happened after Arab stations said that the Israeli army had soldiers from all over the world, but did not mention that they were Israelis rushing back to their unit to help fight.
Their most common use of social media is immediate responses and responses to news events. When Ali Murtada, a reporter for the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Mayadeen network, posted a video of the bombed Kibbutz Manara on the X account and mockingly said, "Manara is like a ghost town now, never come back," Edri, who has 561,<> followers, quickly tweeted in response: "How are the villages in southern Lebanon, and have you seen anyone there in recent days who can tell about it?"
When Egyptian singer Anram cursed the IDF Spokesperson in Arabic, "May God take you," after he asked residents of the Zeitoun neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip to evacuate south, he replied: "God will take them all, there is no one who will always remain on this land. The difference is that there is one who will meet death after painful suffering, and there are those whom Allah will have mercy on for his humanitarian deeds."
The IDF Spokesperson's Office in Arabic keeps as a souvenir a video uploaded by Gaza photographer Mu'taz Azayzeh, documenting the IDF's ground operations during the war. Azaiza, who has 17.8 million followers on Instagram, posted a story showing an elderly woman from Al Bureij camp referring to an IDF Spokesperson's announcement asking residents to evacuate. The woman asks, "Is it real, or is it a rumor?" and the photographer replies, "It's official, the army issued a statement," and then she says, "Then we'll leave for Deir al Balah."
Captain Ella is the one who usually addresses the women of Gaza and conveys the messages. "You have to give them their place within the event," she explains.
How do you address them?
"I say that those terrorists who entered the kibbutzim are their children. "All your life you educated your children, in the end someone else came, changed your life and theirs. They kidnapped and murdered small children.' You touch the emotion of that mother or sister. He asks her how exactly her brother maintains the family's honor and leaves them with nothing because of Hamas. It's not just about a woman, it's also about a man when I ask, 'What kind of man are you?'"
Quite a bit of the network's work is in the field of trolling, identifying weak points on the other side and pressing the sensitive warts in the networks. For example, exposing the identity of Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas' military-terrorist wing, who always appears masked. The IDF Spokesperson revealed that he was Hadifa Samir Abdullah al-Kahlot, including a picture of his face. It's a short six-second video that quickly went viral.
No less significant trolling occurred not long ago when IRGC spokesman Ramadan Sharif claimed that the "Al-Aqsa Flood," the name given to the October 7 massacre, came in retaliation for the assassination of Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani exactly four years ago.
Hamas was quick to deny it, claiming that the operation came mainly because of the dangers threatening the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The IDF Spokesperson's trolling sought to put a foot into the developing conflict with a mocking tweet: "How cheap in the eyes of the Iranians is the blood of Arabs and Palestinians. They say Sinwar avenged the death of Qassem Soleimani by burning Gaza, and Al Jazeera published and then deleted the tweet because it realized it did not fit with the messages of ISIS-Hamas. Shame and disgrace to all Hamas and its mouthpieces."
The IDF knew that the last thing Hamas wanted was to say that they were a puppet of the Iranians, and indeed their denials and those of the Iranians did not help. The discourse on social media has swelled. The Saudis were the first to jump on the event ("We told you, they are puppets"), and the IDF Spokesperson knew that this was another opportunity to show that Iran and Hamas are two sides of the same coin.
Duel with Iran
The Iranians, who supervise what is happening on both the southern and northern borders, receive special honor from the IDF Spokesperson. An entire section takes care of them, and on the occasion of the war effort, Kamal Pinhasi, who grew up until the age of 15 in Tehran, previously published a newspaper in Persian and understands all the subtleties on which it is worth dwelling. "In every food you need the special spice, so I'm the spice," Pinhasi, who rose to the rank of sergeant major (res.) in the last reserve duty, defines his mission.
The relationship with the Iranian people is more complex. Since there is no cooperation with the Iranian media and it is difficult to cross the Iron Curtain there, the department's staff conveys the messages on social networks, but mainly through the opposition media, which broadcasts in the Iranian language from Europe and whose reporters came to cover the war. According to the IDF Spokesperson's Office, about 90 percent of their materials reach Iranians, most of them residents of large cities, especially the capital Tehran.
"One of the items that affected them the most was, 'Where does your money go?'" says Pinhasi. "We didn't expect so many responses, even though as Percy I know how important money is to them. Most of the Iranian people suffer from economic difficulties, so they find it hard to believe that billions have reached the hands of the Hamasniks. We explained to them that the money went to the tunnels and rockets, and most importantly and annoyingly, to the pockets of the Hamas leadership. We think Iran is closed like North Korea, but no. Most of the Iranian people have lost their fear, they don't care anymore."
Iran is not a relatively small organization like Hamas, it is a regional power. Among other things, it has a well-developed propaganda network and large resources, while the IDF Spokesperson's Office has a modest section that has been working with it for less than four years, yet its messages are invested, including the videos that have been published. Iran has already opened an Instagram page in response – "Iran in Hebrew" – to dismantle the lies being spread, which they certainly did not like when IDF Spokesperson Hagari joined the propaganda effort and was interviewed by Iran International.
"The Iranian correspondent told me, 'I'm shocked by Hagari's vast knowledge, even on the subject of our cinema,'" Pinhasi said, "By the way, there are also stations of the Iranian opposition that are not very sympathetic to us, and through them too we try to convey messages, because it shows credibility compared to the Iranian media, which supports the regime, which has much greater means, a skilled staff, and is open to spreading lies. Something we don't allow ourselves. I believe that despite everything, in this game we lead them at least 0-2."
Lt. Col. Edri says that despite the Iranian desk's strong desire to respond to any issue coming from Tehran, it often curbs the enthusiasm in the section. "In everything that passes through us, thought is invested, or before it comes work," he stresses, "There are times when you see something and say, 'I have to answer,' but in the same place you check if this is the right time, because in quite a few places a tweet can replace a bomb."
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