Israeli army admits to covert influence campaign in Gaza war

By ISABEL DEBRE
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says that it made a “mistake” in launching a secretive influence campaign on social media in an effort to improve the public’s view of Israel’s performance in its devastating war with Gaza militants in 2021. The online campaign, which failed to gain traction, was one of several contentious — even deceptive — tactics employed by the Israeli military in the bloody 11-day war, which killed over 260 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, as the military bombed the Hamas-ruled territory and Palestinian militants launched rockets at Israel. Israel’s Haaretz daily first exposed the social media operation Wednesday, reporting that the Israeli army employed fake accounts to conceal the campaign’s origin.