The Jerusalem Post talks about four stages of the psychological war waged by Hamas against the Israelis in its analysis. It is a psychological/communicational war with the aim of Israeli public opinion putting pressure on the Netanyahu government to end the war, beyond the “red lines” it has set.

“Instrumentation”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad recently released a propaganda video featuring Israeli hostage Sasha Trupanov. In the nearly 30-second video, Trupanov says he will speak about his and other hostages’ experiences in Gaza in the coming days.

The video is the latest part of a larger strategy to exploit hostages as instruments of terror, inflicting a nation already exposed to incredible pain.

Before releasing the Trupanov video, Hamas also released a video claiming to have kidnapped Israeli soldiers. The Israel Defense Forces quickly clarified that there was no incident of abduction of a soldier, calling the Hamas claims lies intended to increase psychological pressure on Israeli public opinion.

“Since the beginning of October, Hamas has systematically moved to sow fear and confusion in Israeli society, using the media to carry out psychological attacks,” the publication noted.

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 injured, rushed women and dead. Among them was 22-year-old Sunny Luke.

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

On May 22, Hamas released a video showing female soldiers. On May 20, another propaganda video of a 51-year-old man who had been taken hostage with his mother by Kibbutz Nirim was released.

In a bid to win global support, Israel recently released a shocking video of young women hostages taken by Hamas, with one of the terrorists in the video saying: “These girls can get pregnant.”

According to the Jerusalem Post “these cases of psychological warfare show that the battlefield now extends far beyond physical confrontations. Hamas aims to bend the spirit and resolve of an entire nation.”

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

“An orchestrated, pre-planned campaign”

Weimann told Media Line that the psychological tactics of the Gaza war were targeted moves.

“It is an orchestrated and pre-planned campaign that Hamas started before October 7. What we are seeing now is the fourth stage,” he explained.

First stage: Pre-planning

“The first stage was pre-planning. The terrorists were preparing for the invasion not only by killing, torturing and raping, but also by documenting and using media materials for psychological warfare.

“They bought equipment like cameras and mobile phones and got Israeli SIM cards. They educated the world. All this happened before October 7th. Replacing old cards with new Israeli SIM cards was also part of the psychological campaign because they had to connect to the Israeli network so they could upload and live stream the videos they shot during the attack,” he said.

Second stage: War and social media

The second stage was the video recordings during the invasion.

“They recorded everything, including the murders, the invasion and the kidnappings. Even the return of the bodies was recorded on cameras and immediately sent to Gaza. It was edited and posted on social media,” noted Weimman.

Third stage: Release of hostages

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

“It was done in a very ceremonial way. Hamas came in full gear, with uniform and weapons, symbols, posting videos of human gestures to the hostages, giving them bottles of water, helping them, stroking a child’s head, etc. It was also used for psychological reasons,” he explained.

“Now we’re in the biggest, fourth stage,” Weimann added.

He explained that he intends to pressure the Israeli government “using psychological stress on families and Israeli public opinion.”

Katz agreed with this view and told Media Line that “Hamas is feeling the military pressure from Israel.”

“Hamas feels military pressure from Israel. He sees Israel operating in Rafah and Jabaliya. By releasing the hostage videos, he is trying to convince the Israeli people to put pressure on the government to reach an agreement to get the hostages back and end the war,” the journalist commented.

He claimed that there is no example of similar psychological pressure from the Israeli side.

“Obviously you could define as psychological warfare by Israel the release of videos of Hamas terrorist interrogations or the destruction of Hamas property. But Israel does not lie like Hamas lies,” Katz insisted.

“Hamas is using hostage videos very cleverly to make the Israeli people 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 bring the issue to the fore.

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

He explained that the psychological pressure on Hamas also achieved its goals in renewing the negotiations.

“The head of the Mossad was in Paris and met again with the head of the CIA and Qatar. Will Israel and Hamas be able to come to an agreement so that they both get what they want? I hope and pray, and I think a deal is possible. The question is, will Israel be able to get all the hostages back? Or will he have to accept the reality that some of the hostages may never return home?’ he wondered

For her part, Weimann explained that the impact of such violent psychological pressure on society is now impossible to “measure.” “There is no way to appreciate the Israeli trauma, stress, sadness, fear and pessimism that are now part of the Israeli climate,” he said.

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

Weimann explained that certain mechanisms could be used to minimize the effects of Hamas attacks and even to “immunize” oneself against them, such as preparation and self-censorship in Hamas’ psychological/communication warfare.