by MOHAMAD HASAN SWEIDAN
As its military bombs Gaza, despite agreeing to a ceasefire, Tel Aviv launches a parallel online offensive aimed at silencing resistance narratives, manipulating global perceptions, and re-engineering the digital memory of its war crimes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described the “Eighth Front” of his war as the battle over truth. “Seven fronts against Iran and its proxies. The eighth: the battle for the truth,” he said during a ceremony hosted by US network Newsmax at Jerusalem’s Waldorf Astoria hotel.
Its aim is to refute accusations of genocide and deliberate famine linked to Israel’s two-year-long war on the strip, with social media and artificial intelligence (AI) programs serving as the most important battlegrounds on this front.
Digital Iron Dome
In the wake of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023, Israel’s so-called “Digital Iron Dome” was activated to intercept digital content just as its military dome intercepts missiles. But instead of shrapnel, the targets are ideas – posts, images, videos – that expose Israel’s atrocities in the besieged enclave.
This digital dome operates on two main layers. First is the volunteer-driven reporting system: a nationwide campaign in which users flood social media platforms with mass complaints against content deemed unfavorable to Israel. A hybrid of AI and human reviewers rapidly classifies flagged posts, then pushes takedown requests to platforms like Meta, TikTok, and X. The goal is speed – to kill the narrative before it spreads.
TikTok alone deleted 3.1 million videos and cut off 140,000 live streams in the first six months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The Israeli Attorney General’s Cyber Unit filed nearly 9,500 takedown requests during the same period, with Meta allegedly complying 94 percent of the time.
The second layer is algorithmic warfare: AI systems scan over 200,000 websites to identify dissenting narratives, then bombard exposed users with paid pro-Israel content in real time. Using ad campaigns that mimic the look and timing of organic posts, Israel floods timelines with a manufactured counter-narrative.
This dual strategy aims to overwhelm and erase. The first suppresses the spread of resistance voices. The second replaces them with state-approved fabrications.
Weaponizing social media for war
“We’re all the targets of these wars. We’re the ones whose clicks decide whose side wins out.”
– Peter Singer, co-author of LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media
On 26 September 2025, Netanyahu met with 18 US-based social media influencers. The directive was to flood TikTok, X, YouTube, and podcasts with pro-Israel messaging. A week later, Tel Aviv allocated $145 million to its largest-ever digital propaganda campaign, dubbed “Project 545.” The campaign targets US public opinion, especially Gen Z, with AI-assisted content tailored for TikTok and Instagram.
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