At 6:59 pm on October 17, it seemed that the course of the war was about to change, and not in our favor when a rocket exploded in the Al-Ahli (Al-Ma'amadani) Hospital in the Zeitoun neighborhood in the Gaza Strip. Reporters from the Al-Jazeera TV channel were among the first to arrive at the scene and tell the world that the IDF had caused the death of hundreds of innocent Gazans. It took a number of hours for Israel to deliver an official response, but this was an extremely focused response leaving no stone unturned and no room for speculation. The IDF Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, presented imagery and recordings that proved black on white that this was the result of a failed rocket launch by the PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad), and not the result of what had been depicted as an extremely vicious Israeli strike.
Immediately afterward, he was followed by Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Avichay Adraee, the Head of the Arab Media Branch in the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, who resolutely presented the evidence in fluent Arabic to all the Arab media outlets. The IDF is not only fighting in the narrow alleyways of Khan Younis but also in the field of public diplomacy and usually against an extremely hostile and impatient public.
"All the channels in the Arab world – from the Qatari Al-Jazeera to the Emirates-based Al Mashhad TV – aired the IDF Spokesperson's words live, backed up by the facts and the audio recordings, establishing precisely how the IDF had absolutely nothing to do with this incident," recounts LTC Adraee. "Did we succeed in fully convincing global public opinion? No. Did we succeed in generating the understanding that Hamas lies? Yes. 'Dahil rabak' he utters in Arabic, expressing his astonishment, how could one thousand people be 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, Farsi, and Hebrew, as when I joined the army, in the 'Introduction to Hezbollah' class I was taught that the media is a 'multi-barreled cannon' capable of inflicting as much damage as a shell. Make sure you factor in the media in whatever mission you take on. That is the agenda."
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For 18 years now, LTC Adraee (41 years old) has been at the forefront of the IDF Spokesperson's public diplomacy effort in Arabic. In September 2005, Major Eitan Arusi, who held the position at the time, was just about to finish his term of office, and he had to explain a similar situation in which Hamas tried to apportion the blame on Israel for its own 'work accident'. Then, 18 terrorists were killed in an explosion in a parade held in Jabalia. The IDF Spokesperson's Unit did not know where they would find a replacement for Arusi, so at the last moment they decided to pull the then 23-year-old Adraee from his position at the elite 8200 intelligence unit.
For years, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit belonged to the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate and was eventually transferred to the Operations Directorate to underscore the fact that the media is part and parcel of the army's operational effort. Its job is to generate legitimacy for military operations, mainly in relation to the more moderate audiences in the Arab world. The fact is that in the Emirates the focus has not been on the IDF in recent months, and the coverage, if there is any, is based mainly on informative items of information rather than emotive and irate opinions.
Since LTC Adraee has assumed office thousands of rockets have been launched at Israel. Today, the public diplomacy war is not confined to the traditional media outlets of the TV networks and the press, and it spreads like wildfire to the Facebook papers, to the 'X' network (formerly Twitter), not to mention the world of YouTube clips. Every single incident requires a rapid response so that it doesn't fall into the hands of the adversary. "If you want to be a player on this field then you have to create culture, news, an agenda, and in contrast, if there is an agenda that you have not created, then at least make the effort to enter into it on time," an ex-IDF Spokesperson officer explains.
Knowing just how to market the battlefield
The Head of the Arab Media Branch is not the only player on this tough playing field. He is supported by a highly active and energetic desk or section, and in recent years the role of his faithful 'sidekick' has been assumed by his deputy, Major Ella Waweya (34), a Muslim woman, born in the Arab city of Qalansuwa in central Israel, who as a result of her frequent media appearances is better known in the Arab world as "Captain Ella".
"They know that I am an Arab, but many people say that I am lying also because of my name, and they also claim that I don't have a genuine Arabic accent," she laughs. "Don't worry, I remind them of this all the time. Some people are put off by my uniform, but in any event, they choose to listen, and there are those who,o look at me with a sense of pride too. Yesterday, I took a peek at the questions' corner that I have to face. There were women from Morocco, Israeli Arabs, and also Palestinian women too, and I saw that some of them stated that they regarded me as a personal example. This is the place to convey a message, even if it doesn't always go down well with a specific individual. He can take two steps back and think about what we have said, no matter whether it is a woman or a man who seeks to do so."
In this job, it is important to appear in dress uniform, also as in the Arab world, when an officer goes out on an official mission, his uniform is always crisply ironed with all the war medals and citations proudly displayed on his chest. For us, our uniform conveys credibility, and during the Arab Spring the slogans in the city squares were "The army and the people walk hand in hand."
Neither Hamas nor Hezbollah have any propaganda that is designed for the Israeli audience, and if they do actually create clips these are usually intended to scare the public or to engage in psychological warfare against the other side. But we cannot ignore the massive presence of Al-Jazeera, the largest network in the Middle East and North Africa, which has been broadcasting for 27 years without any effort to be neutral, definitely not in the current 'Swords of Iron' war.
Usually, when an Israeli interviewee appears on Al-Jazeera, the interviewers are tough, and on numerous occasions, IDF Spokesperson representatives have warned that there is a delay of several seconds between the actual broadcast in Qatar and the interview in Israel, as the channel's crew in Doha appears to be gaining time in order to prepare themselves. When official complaints have been lodged, the Arabic news channel has replied that they are seeking to solve the problem.
Several times a day, the military commentator Fayez al-Dwairi, a former Jordanian army officer, appears on Al-Jazeera, explaining with the aid of interactive maps just how Israel is failing to win in battle and how Hamas has the upper hand. This might well appear to be a case of fighting a losing battle from the very outset, as some of the individuals holding the senior positions on the news channel are identified with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Having said that, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit continues to work with Al-Jazeera, based on the understanding that it still might be possible to gain some advantage from this problematic relationship. The fact is that they did manage to exploit the Qataris' hostility towards the Syrian regime in order to prepare news items regarding the IDF's preparations for war against Hezbollah, an organization engaged in intimate cooperation with Bashar Assad's regime. In these instances, the delay magically disappeared. The IDF is well aware of the power of Al-Jazeera as a leading news channel. The problem is that from a very early stage of this current war, the news channel has been focusing on creating a narrative of the Hamas victory.
Although they might not be able to change Al-Jazeera, in the daily Arabic press; however, possibly as part of the political processes evolving in recent years, there has been a change of trend in relation to the military conflict in the Gaza Strip. In the UAE and Bahrain, for example, the war does not always make the front pages, and if it does – then it is portrayed from a local point of view.
In the popular pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, which is sold across a large number of Arab states, criticism has been voiced against what happened on October 7 and the ensuing destruction that Hamas has brought on the Gaza Strip. During the first week of the war, it even published an article entitled "Yahya Sinwar – your job is to leave the Gaza Strip in order to save it."
In contrast to Al-Jazeera, which for the most part tends to use video clips provided by Hamas, the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV station uploads clips it receives from the IDF Spokesperson Unit for broadcasting, and these too are only aired after it has finished updating its viewers as to the economic news, which is of slightly more interest to them. Once, a war like this would open the news broadcasts, and no real effort was needed to see who the "bad guys" in the story were.
On the whole, the cooperation between the IDF and the Arab media during the current fighting has gone up a level and it appears to be a somewhat strange relationship, certainly compared with the past. During IDF Operation Protective Edge in 2014, it was Captain Ella who proposed allowing Arab reporters into the combat zones, but LTC Adraee completely dismissed this idea as a non-starter. This time too, his deputy was the one to propose 'marketing the battlefield', and indeed the IDF invited Arab reporters; though, Adraee thought that no IDF commander would be prepared to take them with him into Khan Younis. As it happens, his predictions proved to be wrong. Although some members of the Arab media did succeed in elegantly evading the invitation, claiming that they were afraid, while others explained that their specific outlet does not accompany military forces, there were some who did decide to join the IDF convoys and entered Gaza donning a vest and helmet.
Among others, journalists came from the Iran International channel, who had already visited the Gaza Strip on four occasions during the current fighting. Representatives of the BBC Farsi News service, a channel identified with the Iranian opposition, appeared, and their entry into Gaza stirred up lively debate in Iran, mainly on the regime-backed platforms, and a reporter from France-24 in Arabic arrived in Israel from Morocco, who then joined up with the IDF forces along the humanitarian corridor in the Gaza Strip, alongside IDF troops in the Namer (Leopard) APC.
"In the end, you really have to explain that we did not choose to go to war and that it was Hamas who has brought on all this destruction, and that if you are urging the Gazan population to move southwards then the idea is to avoid hurting them, so that you can focus on Hamas and its terrorist infrastructure," Captain Ella explains the rationale behind this move. "Harrowing footage is a plain fact of life in a war in which both sides suffer. There are many images being shown and which are referred to as a 'massacre'. It is imperative to explain what is going on and the fact that Hamas uses the local population as a human shield. It uses hospitals and mosques. Visual evidence of this appears along with the recordings from the interrogations published by Israel's Security Agency, the Shin Bet. It goes to prove just how bad Hamas is for the residents of the Gaza Strip, and that whoever is killed there dies because of them."
"We are not bowing and scraping"
A considerable amount of the findings emerging from the interrogations or which were found on the bodies of the terrorists have also been published in the Arab media or social media in order to expose the dimensions of the horror from the Black Sabbath of October 7, and also to stress the slogan that has been constantly underscored since the start of the fighting "Hamas = ISIL."
Thus, for example, the telephone conversation in which a terrorist was bragging to his parents about how many Jews he had killed on October 7, was published along with a note found on the body of another terrorist containing clear instructions of what he was to do: "You must sharpen the blades of your swords and be pure in your thoughts before Allah. Know that the enemy is a disease that has no cure, apart from beheading them and removing their hearts and livers. Go forth and attack them!"
The IDF Spokesperson Unit noticed that Yahya Sinwar's men were mainly disturbed by the attempts at branding them "Hamas = ISIL." They even went against the local Gaza population in order to explain what happened on that Shabbat, turning to the lame excuse that a rabble entered the kibbutzim after the Hamas Nukhba forces had infiltrated, and it was these local mobs that had carried out the horrendous acts of murder and mutilation. When claims were raised regarding the rape of women, they immediately shouted out that there is no proof. But the footage of the atrocities filmed by the terrorists themselves then became a key tool in the public diplomacy campaign. LTC Adraee attended a Zoom meeting with social media influencers and journalists from the Gulf States, a conversation watched in real time by about one million viewers in real time a brief summary of the now infamous 47-minute 'atrocities' movie (officially entitled: Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre) compiled by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit from raw footage filmed on October 7.
Q: Did Hamas make a propaganda mistake when it filmed those scenes?
LTC Adraee: "As far as their audience is concerned, this was a case of ecstasy, but there are tensions between different audiences. Even when I published the clip showing IDF soldiers helping an old woman in Gaza, some people said, 'In Kibbutz Nir Oz, one of the Hamas men asked a grandmother if she wanted a wheelchair?' And that is true. But sometimes, you say that if the video serves the larger operational effort, then it is worthwhile publicizing it. Do you know how many things we reject based on the principle that victory takes priority, and only after that does the humanitarian aid come? We are not bowing and scraping or trying to appease anybody".
LTC Adraee addresses the other side on numerous occasions. In each clip, it is important to select the most appropriate language. Spoken Arabic, literary Arabic, perhaps even the use of slang, depends on the objective. In late November, in an interview with Sky News in Arabic, and also on the 'X' social media, the IDF Spokesperson in Arabic sent a clear message to Hamas: "The babies with the orange hair, the redheads (the Bibas Family, EL), were abducted from Nir Oz by a Hamas terrorist, and they are being held in the Khan Younis area by one of the Palestinian factions."
LTC Adraee's words spread like wildfire across the Arabic media, and only three days later Hamas issued a statement according to which Shiri Bibas and her infant children Ariel and Kfir are no longer alive, information that has not been verified, but this clearly demonstrated that somebody on the other side had not remained impassive to what the Spokesperson had said.
The October 7 atrocities are also an opportunity to change the momentum in the domestic dialogue with the Israeli Arabs. Not long ago, some 150 Muslim clerics from all over Israel came to visit one of the IDF bases to receive a comprehensive explanation as to what is going on, to then pass on this information was their own communities and to stress that it was not only Jews who were butchered, but also Arabs, some of whom were abducted.
"The aim of this exercise was that on Fridays, during the sermon before prayers, they would speak about this issue," says Captain Ella, "Some of them were afraid and others spoke in smaller groups, and this is extremely important, as we wish to emphasize that this war is against everybody, and the fact is that when I go to an Arab restaurant, I do see them inviting soldiers to eat for free. I am also now seeing more and more Arabs seeking to join the army and they approach me; they are prepared to volunteer and to help out."
Touching raw emotions
Both Ella and Avichay maintain a very strong presence on social media. They appear there using their own names rather than under the military framework where they work, in an effort to try and encourage broader responses and to convey messages in a more personalized manner. And accordingly, both favorable and opposing responses are posted, sometimes including more extreme reactions, the main idea being to generate interaction. LTC Adraee has been somewhat surprised with the degree of animation on social media during the war, mainly when requests arrived from Morocco and Sudan asking to join the IDF. This occurred when Arab-speaking stations told that there are soldiers serving in the Israeli army from all around the world, but they simply failed to point out that these were in fact Israelis who had jumped aboard the first flight home to join their units and take part in the combat.
The two tend to use social media more often for providing immediate responses to news-related incidents. When Ali Mortada, a reporter with the Al-Mayadeen network, closely affiliated with Hezbollah, posted on his 'X' account a clip of Kibbutz Manara being shelled, and scoffed, "Manara is now like a ghost town, you will never return there," Adraee, who has 561 thousand followers, was quick to tweet in response: "How are the villages in southern Lebanon, and have you seen anybody there at all in the last few days who can talk about it?"
When the popular Egyptian singer, Angham, cursed the IDF Spokesperson in Arabic, "May God take you away," after he asked the residents of the Zeitoun neighborhood in the northern Gaza Strip to move to the south, he replied to her: "God will take us all, nobody will be able to last forever on this land. The difference is that some will meet their death after much pain and suffering, while Allah will have mercy on others for their humanitarian actions."
The Arab Media Branch in the IDF Spokesperson's Unit is keeping as a souvenir a clip posted by the Gaza-based cameraman, Motaz Azaiza, documenting the IDF ground maneuver during the war. Azaiza, with 17.8 million followers on Instagram, posted a Story in which an elderly woman from the Al-Bureij refugee camp is seen relating to the IDF Spokesperson's announcement asking the residents to evacuate their homes. The woman asks, "Is this genuine or is it a rumor?" And the cameraman answers, "It's official, the army issued the announcement," and then she says, "So we'll move to Deir al-Balah."
Captain Ella is usually the one to reach out to the women of Gaza and convey the messages to them. "It is important to give them their own space in this overall event," she explains.
Q: How do you address them?
"I say that those same terrorists who went into the kibbutzim and did what they did are their children. 'All your life, you have brought up your children, and then somebody else comes along, and changes your life and theirs. They abducted and murdered small children.' This is how you touch the raw nerve of a mother or sister. I ask her how exactly does her brother preserve the family honor and leave them without anything at all because of Hamas. This is not merely something that is directed at the women; however, but the men too, when I ask them, 'What sort of a man are you?'"
A considerable part of the work on social media involves trolling, identifying the chinks in the adversary's armor, and then applying pressure to its most sensitive weak points on social media. For example, exposing the identity of Abu Obaida, the nom de guerre of the Hamas Military Wing spokesman who always appears with his face covered to disguise himself. The IDF Spokesperson exposed Abu Obaida's real identity as Hudhayfah Samir Abdullah al-Kahlot, including photos of his face. This was done using a short, six-second clip, which became viral in no time at all.
An equally important act of trolling occurred recently when the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corp) spokesman, Ramadan Sharif, claimed that the 'Al-Aqsa Flood', the name given to the October 7 massacre by Hamas, was carried out, among others, in revenge for the assassination of the IRGC-Qods Force commander, Qassem Soleimani, precisely four years ago.
Hams were quick to deny this, claiming that they had engaged in this attack mainly due to the dangers threatening the Al-Aqsa mosque. The IDF Spokesperson jumped at this opportunity in an attempt to stir up the trouble that had already begun to brew with a derisory tweet: "How cheap Arab and Palestinian blood is in the eyes of the Iranians. They say that Sinwar has avenged the death of Qassem Soleimani by burning the whole of Gaza, and Al-Jazeera published this tweet and then deleted it, as it realized that this was not consistent with the messages of Hamas-ISIL. Shame on Hamas and its mouthpieces."
The IDF was well aware of the fact that the last thing that Hamas wants is for people to say that they are an Iranian puppet, and indeed their denials along with those of the Iranians did not help in this case. The online discourse on this matter simply grew exponentially. The Saudis were the first to jump on the bandwagon in this case ("We told you so, they are puppets"), and the IDF Spokesperson's Unit knew that this was a further opportunity to demonstrate that Iran and Hamas are two sides of the same coin.
A duel with Iran
The Iranians, who are closely monitoring developments along Israel's southern and northern borders, are afforded special attention by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. An entire section is dedicated to dealing with the Iranians, and as part of the current war effort, the unit decided to recruit a specialist for this important mission, so they turned to Kamal Penhasi, who grew up in Tehran until the age of fifteen. In the past, he published a Farsi newspaper and he really understands all the various nuances that need to be addressed. "In whatever dish you are preparing you need a special spice, and so I am that spice." This is how Penhasi, who during his current spell of reserve duty was promoted to the rank of chief sergeant first class, defines his mission.
The relationship with the Iranian people is much more complex. As there is no existing cooperation with the media in Iran and it is nigh on impossible to penetrate the iron curtain there, the soldiers in the IDF Spokesperson's Iran Section are forced again to turn to social media to convey their messages, but mainly via the Iranian opposition media outlets that broadcast in Farsi from Europe, and whose reporters came to Israel to cover the war. According to the IDF Spokesperson's data, some 90 percent of their material reaches the people in Iran, most of which reaches the urban population, mainly in the capital city of Tehran.
"One of the items with the greatest impact on them was entitled 'What happens to your money?'" Penhasi tells us. "We certainly did not expect so many responses, even though as a Persian myself, I know just how important money is to them. The majority of the people in Iran suffer from economic hardship and so they find it difficult to believe that billions of dollars have been poured into the Hamas war machine. We explained to them that all this money went into building tunnels and rockets, and most importantly and perhaps the most irritating of all – into the pockets of the Hamas leadership. People tend to think that Iran is a closed society just like North Korea, but that really is not the case. Most of the Iranians have lost their fear, they no longer care."
Iran is no relatively small organization like Hamas, it is a regional power. Iran has, among others, a highly developed, well-oiled propaganda machine that is fueled by endless resources, while the IDF Spokesperson is armed with an extremely modest section that has been operating against Iran for less than four years now, and despite that, its messages are highly informed and well prepared, including the clips that it has posted. In Iran, they have already launched an Instagram page in response – "Iran in Hebrew" – designed, as they put it, to dismantle the lies being distributed, and they certainly did not like it when the IDF Spokesperson himself, Daniel Hagari, took part in the public diplomacy effort and gave an interview to the Iran International opposition network.
"The Iranian reporter told me, 'I am astounded by the immense knowledge of Hagari, even regarding our cinema,'" Penhasi proudly states, "By the way – there are Iranian opposition stations that are not so fond of us, and we try to send messages via them too, as this bolsters our credibility compared with the official Iranian media, that support the regime, which have access to much greater resources, highly-trained staff, and it has no qualms about disseminating lies, something that we clearly are not prepared to do. I believe, that despite everything, in this current game, we are leading them by a score of at least 2:0."
LTC Adraee explains that despite the strong desire of his Iranian desk to respond to every issue emerging from Tehran, on more than one occasion he has had to dampen the enthusiasm of his soldiers. "Every single item that lands on our desk requires a serious thought process and accordingly we need to invest much work before responding," he stresses, "On occasions, you see something and then your gut feeling is 'I must respond to this', but then you need to take a step back and check to see whether this really is the appropriate time for it, as on many occasions a tweet can take the place of a bomb."
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