An academic analysis of İsraeli official social media accounts in terms of propaganda during the Israel–Palestine conflict

Throughout history, propaganda has constituted one of the central instruments in managing conflicts and crises. It has been employed to mobilize masses, legitimize policies, and influence public opinion both locally and internationally. With the advancement of digital media and social networking platforms, propaganda has acquired a new and more effective dimension, given its capacity for rapid dissemination and its ability to directly affect audiences through advanced visual, auditory, and interactive tools. In the context of Israel's conflict on the Gaza Strip (2023–2025), official digital platforms emerged as one of the most significant arenas of media confrontation and as a central instrument of psychological warfare and political propaganda. This study aims to analyze the official Israeli propaganda discourse on social media during the conflict by categorizing its forms, tracing its methods, and uncovering its strategies directed toward the international community, the Arab public, and the Palestinian audience. To facilitate the observation of transformations in the propaganda discourse, the researcher divided the conflict into five major phases, based on a comprehensive review of the conflict's daily records and the documentation of research centers. The study belongs to the field of descriptive research and applies the survey method combined with content analysis. The stratified sample consists of (500) posts collected from five active official Israeli pages on Facebook and Twitter: the page of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (addressing the international community), the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs page (addressing the global public opinion), the Hebrew-language page of the IDF spokesperson (addressing the Israeli public), and the pages "Israel Speaks Arabic" and Avichay Adraee (addressing the Arab and Palestinian audiences). The sample was distributed as 100 posts per page, amounting to 20 posts in each time phase. The analysis relies on seven main categories: propaganda issues, detailed themes, discourse orientations, propaganda techniques, objectives, tools and elements used, and propaganda terminology. Preliminary findings indicate that Israel employed its official pages as instruments to legitimize occupation and delegitimize Palestinian resistance through differentiated propaganda strategies. While Netanyahu and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized legal and political legitimacy before the international community, Avichay Adraee's page served as a medium for psychological warfare messages directed at Palestinians. In contrast, the page "Israel Speaks Arabic" adopted a discourse of dehumanization and identity distortion through descriptors such as "terrorists," "rats," and "insects."