Abu Obeida, who spent nearly 20 years as the spokesman for Hamas’s military wing before Israel eliminated him on Sunday, oversaw a propaganda network of more than 1,000 operatives who work directly with the terror group’s military units across Gaza to control messaging and orchestrate psychological warfare, according to a Tuesday report.
The operatives act as “operational documenters” within Hamas’s military units, using GoPros and camera kits to capture and then distort battleground footage, Army Radio correspondent Doron Kadosh reported, according to a translation by Google Translate. Each military unit hosts a “propaganda department” that edits field footage into videos as operatives monitor Israeli media to tailor Hamas’s messaging.
Abu Obeida personally stage-managed hostages on “what they would say and how they would be filmed” in videos, Kadosh reported. The propaganda chief attended “the hostage release ceremonies in the latest release deal,” where he “briefed the hostages before they went on stage—what to say and what to do,” according to the report.
He was also involved in Hamas’s battle plans, scheming to use global “awareness and influence” to dissuade Israel from launching an offensive to take control of Gaza City. “He planned to do this through psychological terror tactics that would make use of the hostages,” Kadosh went on.
Israel on Friday launched what it called the “initial stages” of the long-planned offensive on Gaza City, aiming to dismantle Hamas’s last stronghold, bring home all remaining hostages, and disarm Hamas.
Abu Obeida never publicly showed his face and often appeared masked in a red-checkered kaffiyeh. After Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, he threatened to execute civilian hostages and broadcast the killings in response to Israeli retaliatory strikes. In 2021, he claimed that the decision to bomb Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities is “easier for us than drinking water.”
Hamas has made propaganda a weapon in its war against Israel, distorting international perceptions of the Jewish state while portraying itself as a resistance movement. The tactic mirrors the terror group’s repeated use of civilian infrastructure to shield terrorist activity, from building tunnels and command centers beneath hospitals and schools to planting mines among children’s toys inside residential buildings.
In addition to Abu Obeida, Israel has “eliminated more than 200 terrorists” from the propaganda network, “most of them at the command level,” though “more than 1,000 functioning terrorists remain in the apparatus,” Kadosh reported.
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