(Israel Hayom) A strategic threat against Israel, one involving Qatar and Iran, has been ongoing for two decades.

Israel appears to the world as solely responsible for the Gaza crisis, despite streaming enormous quantities of food into the Strip. Beyond the government’s supposed failure in managing humanitarian aid and lack of public diplomacy, the threat is mainly the result of a well-funded propaganda apparatus with multiple arms.

A system, managed by the terrorist organization’s leadership abroad, receiving assistance from international media corporations, penetrating deep into Gaza’s health system, training Palestinians for social media activity, and receiving support from students in the US.

Most of its agents have survived so far, and they have no intention of stopping.

The seeds were planted in the setting up of a Gaza newspaper in January 1996. Al-Risala was a Hamas publication, serving as a platform for extensive incitement against Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, the Authority often tried to shut it down, without success.

The initial editor was Salah al-Bardawil. Later, he would become a member of Hamas’s “political bureau” in Gaza, led by Yahya Sinwar. In March, al-Bardawil was eliminated in the Khan Yunis area.

A year after Al-Risala‘s first issue, the Palestinian Information Center was established, a network of news sites identified with Hamas in multiple languages.

Al-Bardawil didn’t settle for written media. In 2006, he was a partner in establishing the Al-Aqsa TV propaganda network. Another partner was Fathi Hamad, who operated the channel through a subsidiary company he managed.

Before the war, Hamad managed to leave for Turkey. During those years, the network established a radio station and a news agency called Shihab.

Each platform was designed to capture a different segment of the Palestinian population. Shihab was responsible for the youth wing, and, not coincidentally, earned millions of followers on social networks.

Over the years, every Hamas media entity (Al-Risala, Al-Aqsa TV and others) established its own social media accounts. Together, an enormous mass of Hamas mouthpieces was created in the digital space. And this does not include influencers of all kinds.

One of the network’s managers is Palestinian media figure Wissam Afifa. Previously, he managed Al-Risala. These days, Afifa presents himself as a “commentator.” In this capacity, he appears on the Qatari network Al Jazeera and participates in echoing Hamas messages.

OBJECTIVE REPORTING? Palestinian journalists in the central Gaza Strip, July 26, 2025. Photo by Ali Hassan/Flash90

Ariel Admoni, a researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) and Qatar expert, told Israel Hayom that some of the Al-Aqsa TV network’s staff received training from Al-Jazeera.

“From the beginning, the Qataris were very involved in Hamas rule,” Admoni said. “Qatari media knew how to break down the Gaza event into content suitable for different audiences. Those suitable for the institutional network of Al Jazeera, and those suitable for more subversive platforms, such as AJ+ (Al Jazeera Plus), the Middle East Eyewebsite, or even various influencers that Qatar finances.

“Qatar was a force multiplier in this context when recent campaigns received institutional support. That is, videos of Israeli soldiers being killed in the Gaza Strip received an echo from Qatari newspaper editors, like Jaber al-Harmi, editor of the Al-Sharq newspaper, owned by the Qatari emir’s family.

“Similarly, we can see how, in the recent ‘starvation campaign,’ it was not just an Al Jazeera production. Qatari ministers also participated, like Mariam Al Misnad, Qatar’s minister of state for international cooperation, who took a position on the shocking hunger in Gaza and how Israel is wrong,” said Admoni.

The echo chamber

Simultaneously, Hamas maintains a well-oiled spokesperson apparatus divided into military and civilian arms. The first is managed by Hadaifa al-Kahlout.

Its missions include documenting hits on IDF soldiers, filming hostage videos and transmitting the wing’s messages through social networks. The “civilian” wing is responsible for distributing data regarding the population’s condition and publishing statements to the media.

One of its spokesmen was Abd al-Latif al-Qanua, considered close to Sinwar and eliminated in March. Additional spokesmen operate abroad within “political bureau” branches in Qatar, Turkey and Algeria.

Today, three spokesmen head the civilian wing in Gaza; Hazem Qasem, responsible for statements, Salama Maarouf, defined as head of the “governmental communications” office, and Ismail Thawabta, who manages the office.

The latter two are responsible for publishing casualty data in the war, those that fit the narrative Hamas wants to broadcast. Beyond that, Maarouf served on the boards of Al-Risala and Al-Aqsa TV.

The Iranian connection

Iran also sensed the opportunity. Michael Barak, a terrorism expert from Reichman University in Herzliya, told Israel Hayom about the involvement of a giant Iranian media conglomerate, IRTVU (the Tehran-based Islamic Radio and Television Union), which unites more than 200 radio stations, news sites and television channels. Some entities are identified with Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shi’ite militias in Iraq.

The conglomerate, defined by the US as the Revolutionary Guards’ propaganda arm, trained Hamas media personnel in Beirut studios, including instruction in news program presentation.

Hezbollah supervised the process, with the model being the Al-Manar propaganda network. The Palestinian branch of IRTVU was established in 2017. This is essentially another Iranian foothold in Gaza in the “public diplomacy’ field,” Barak said.

The researcher revealed that the person responsible for Palestinian training in Lebanon was a Hezbollah figure named Nassar Akhdar. Since then, he has been appointed as IRTVU deputy secretary-general and a senior official in the Iranian axis.

About four months before the Oct. 7 Hamas onslaught on Israel, a delegation from the Hamas propaganda apparatus arrived in Lebanon and met with Akhdar. There, the parties discussed mobilizing joint propaganda efforts against Israel.

In Gaza, the conglomerate’s representative was Salah al-Masri, a journalist identified with Islamic Jihad. According to Barak, Hezbollah’s training over the years included the following topics; how to counter the Israeli narrative, how to train social media influencers, how to train schoolchildren to produce their own content, and how to recruit Israeli citizens for propaganda efforts.

Another body assisting the campaign is the National Students for Justice in Palestine, operating on US campuses. “They’re connected to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in the US, and they also helped the ‘starvation campaign,’” said Barak.

Doctors with borders

The echo chamber Hamas created in the Strip doesn’t end here. Dr. Ashraf al-Qudra is the spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry. He’s one of the most quoted information sources in Israeli and international media.

Except al-Qudra isn’t in the Strip at all. During the war, he left for Qatar, where he maintains direct contact with Hamas leadership. Al-Qudra indeed relies on information from Gaza health system personnel, but they, too, depend on Hamas.

In 2007, following the Hamas coup in Gaza, this health system underwent purges. The then-health minister in the Hamas government, Basem Naim, now residing in Qatar, made sure to fire central hospital directors, remove approximately 600 doctors, and get rid of an unknown number of staff members.

They were “identified with Fatah,” so they were replaced with Islamist terrorist movement loyalists. In other words, every senior figure in Gaza’s health system depends on Hamas or belongs to it.

Indeed, under the watchful eyes of Gaza hospital administrators, Israeli hostages were held, and some were even murdered by terrorists in these same medical centers. Moreover, these same complexes served Hamas as headquarters and hiding places, with underground tunnels dug in their vicinity.

Another factor to note is the spokesman for the “Civil Defense System,” Mahmoud Basal. This refers to Hamas’s rescue team mechanism. According to the IDF, the defense system spokesman was responsible in recent months for providing fabricated data to the international media outlets. Furthermore, it was revealed that simultaneously, he operated as a Hamas terrorist.

This is the tip of the iceberg. Hamas’s propaganda apparatus also extends across additional accounts in the digital arena, for example Gaza Now, and includes influencers with millions of followers.

Originally published by Israel Hayom.