The four stages of Hamas’s psychological warfare - analysis

Palestinian Islamic Jihad recently published a propaganda video featuring Israeli hostage Sasha Trupanov. In the nearly 30-second clip, Trupanov indicates that he will speak about his experiences and those of other hostages in Gaza in the coming days.

This latest video is part of a broader strategy to exploit hostages as instruments of terror, pressuring a nation already exposed to unbelievable pain.

Before publishing the video with Trupanov, Hamas also released a video claiming to have kidnapped Israeli soldiers. The Israeli Defense Forces quickly stated that there was no incident of soldier abduction, calling Hamas’ claims a lie intended to amplify psychological pressure on the Israeli public.

Since the beginning of October, Hamas has systematically made moves to sow fear and confusion within Israeli society, using media to commit psychological attacks.

On October 8, Hamas released a video showing Israeli civilians, including women and children, being held captive in undisclosed locations. The whole world saw footage of the injured, raped, and killed victims of terror. Among them was 22-year-old Shani Louk, one of the women paraded through the streets of Gaza.

More videos were published again and again, featuring soldiers, female hostages, young girls, babies, and the elderly. In recent months, the psychological warfare has only intensified.

On May 22, Hamas published a video showing female soldiers. On May 20, another propaganda video was released featuring 51-year-old Nadav Popplewell, who was taken hostage with his mother, Channah Peri, from Kibbutz Nirim.

In an attempt to gain worldwide support, Israel recently released a disturbing video of young female hostages captured by Hamas, with one of the terrorists in the footage saying: “These girls can get pregnant”.

These instances of psychological warfare show that the battlefield now extends far beyond physical confrontations. Hamas aims to break the spirit and resolve of an entire nation.

The Media Line spoke to Gabi Weimann, emeritus professor of communications at the University of Haifa, who studies psychological warfare during the Gaza war, and to Israeli journalist Yaakov Katz, former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, to learn more about the monstrous psychological attacks of Hamas.

'An orchestrated, preplanned campaign'

Weimann told the Media Line that the psychological pressures of the Gaza war were thoughtful moves.

“It is an orchestrated and preplanned campaign that Hamas launched and started even before the 7th of October. What we see now is stage four,” he explained.

The first stage was preplanning. Terrorists were preparing for the invasion not just in terms of killing, torturing, and raping, but also for the documentation and using the materials for psychological warfare.

“They bought equipment like cameras and cellular phones and got hold of Israeli SIM cards. They trained the people. All of this was done before the 7th of October. The replacement of the old cards with the new Israeli SIM cards was also part of the psychological campaign because they needed to connect to the Israeli network so they would be able to upload and livestream the videos that they were filming during the attack,” he said.

The second stage was the filming during the invasion.

“They documented everything, including the killing, the takeovers, and the kidnapping of people. Even taking corpses back was documented and sent immediately to Gaza. It was edited and posted online,” he said.

The third stage of the psychological warfare was the release of some of the hostages.

“It was done in a very ceremonial way. Hamas came fully dressed in uniform and arms, weapons, symbols, posting videos of human gestures towards the hostages, giving them bottles, aiding them, stroking the head of a child, and so on. It was also used for psychological reasons,” he explained.

“Now we are in the longer, fourth stage,” added Weimann.

He explained that it is meant to pressure the Israeli government using psychological stress on the families and the Israeli public.

Katz supported this point of view and told The Media Line that Hamas’s psychological increased due to the military situation in Gaza.

“Hamas feels the military pressure from Israel. It sees Israel operating in Rafah and Jabalya. By releasing the hostages’ videos, it’s trying to get the Israeli people to put pressure on the government to reach a deal to get back the hostages and end the war,” said Katz.

He emphasized that there is no example of such psychological pressure from the Israeli side.

“Obviously you could define psychological warfare by Israel as releasing videos of interrogations with Hamas terrorists or showing the destruction of different Hamas assets. But Israel doesn’t lie the way Hamas lies,” Katz explained.

“Hamas uses videos of hostages very smartly in its ability to get the Israeli people to be more vocal in their criticism of the government,” he said.

Such psychological attacks lead to more pressure on the government to make a deal and it brings the issue to the forefront.

“Even though there are people in government like the prime minister who would like this issue to not be the main one,” added Katz.

He explained that the psychological pressure of Hamas also achieved its aims in renewing negotiations.

“The head of Mossad was in Paris meeting again with the head of the CIA and the Qataris. Will Israel and Hamas be able to reach a deal that both of them get what they want? I hope and pray and I think a deal is possible. The question is, will Israel be able to get back all of the hostages? Or will it have to accept the reality that some of the hostages might never come home?” said Katz.

Weimann explained that the impact of such brutal psychological pressure on society is now impossible to measure.

“There is no way we can estimate the Israeli trauma, stress, anxiety, sadness, fear and pessimism, which are all now part of the Israeli climate,” he said.

“The fact that Hamas managed to kidnap people gave them the ability to stab Israelis in the hearts whenever they wanted to with videos and pictures of hostages,” added Katz.

Weimann explained that certain mechanisms could be used to minimize the effect of Hamas attacks and even to immunize oneself against them.

“One of the mechanisms is preparation. If we are ready to be exposed to these horrific videos, then we are better defended,” he said.

The second tactic, according to Weimann, is framing.

“The Israeli military spokesman calls it psychological terror. We already frame it as such. So the public knows that we are exposed to this kind of material. In itself it helps to be prepared,” he added.

The third mechanism is avoidance and self-censoring.

“You don’t need to be exposed to all of it. You don’t need to chase it all over the network. If we know how to be selective about our exposure, we can minimize the damages,” Weimann said.