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10 Jul 2014

Gaza conflict: a war of numbers and PR

“If Gaza was located off the coast of Lincolnshire, people in Manchester and London would live in fear of Hamas rockets” – the PR battle between Israel and Hamas intensifies.

As the volley of rocket fire intensifies from both sides over the Israeli/Gaza border, so too has a campaign of photographs, numbers, cartoons and video aimed at garnering global support for each side’s cause.

Israel has traditionally struggled to get the same international public backing for its airstrikes against Hamas that other countries get for campaigns against “terrorist organisations”.

In turn, Hamas needs to justify its presence in Gaza by showing that it is both a credible threat to Israel and a protector of Palestinian people.

This ideological battle is being played out on social media in a range of messages.

Israeli maps

One approach taken by the Israeli Defence Forces has been to try and explain to the world the threat it is facing – asking “What would be it be like if terrorists could shoot rockets into your country?“

On Wednesday the IDF released maps (pictured, above) imagining if Gaza was located on other international borders – and the cities that would be in the range of Hamas rockets if they were.

If Gaza was located in the Wash estuary, off the coast of Norfolk and Lincolnshire, rockets could hit Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and London, the IDF says.

The IDF even created an interactive map, so users could type in a global location and see the range of Hamas rockets from that point.

One problem – they appear to have got their numbers a little wrong. The range of the M-302 rocket the IDF bases its maps on is 160km, but the range on the maps extends 40km further.

Context

The “put yourselves in our shoes” strategy is one that has been used by Israel before. In 2008, Israel’s foreign ministry set up a media centre in the rocket-bombarded southern Israeli town of Sderot.

The media centre was a reaction to Israeli feelings that the international community did not understand the threat coming from Gaza.

“We thought it was essential to show the context in which Israel’s decisions are being made and that there is a sequence of events,” the foreign ministry said at the time.

And the threat from Gaza is something that Israel continues to try and show through numbers.

Hamas also uses numbers to get its message across – that civilians are being targeted in Israeli airstrikes.

Israel’s response is that it is Hamas that are putting civilians in danger (see video, below), not Israelis – saying that Hamas is deliberately locating itself in residential areas, and is using “human shields”.

That row intensified with the death, according to Palestinian officials, of a family of eight on Thursday morning, including five children, in an Israeli airstrike.

The IDF has made no official comment to the deaths which the Palestinian Health Ministry said occurred in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Israel says it is targeting homes in Gaza – but only when they are being used for military purposes. Hamas says the attacks are more indiscriminate.

See more examples of Hamas and al-Qassam Brigades social media battling below.

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