Thursday, August 7, 2014

The Invisible Face of Hamas



by IDF Blog


The invisible face of Hamas
Hamas hides its actions from the world by threatening journalists, pressuring civilians over social media, and disguising its fighters in civilian clothing.

Despite the large number of international journalists reporting from Gaza during Operation Protective Edge, images of Hamas terrorists have scarcely appeared in Western media outlets. This is primarily because Hamas threatens journalists who don’t tell the story the way Hamas wants it to be told.

terrorists you haven't seen

In addition, Hamas terrorists are often difficult to identify because they wear civilian clothing. By doing so, Hamas terrorists are not only trying to avoid being targeted by the IDF, but the are also causing international organizations to incorrectly label the death of many terrorists as civilians. It should come as no surprise that Hamas has ordered Gaza’s social media users not to post images of terrorists online and to refer to all terrorists killed in IDF strikes as “innocent civilians.”

Hamas Facebook message to social media users asking them not to publish photos of terrorists.

Hamas Facebook message to Palestinians asking them to hide information about terrorist casualties.

Hamas knows that it benefits in the international arena from images of civilian casualties in Gaza. It is for this reason that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure in, and fires rockets from, residential areas and civilian structures. Hamas knows that if it can make terrorists killed by Israel appear to be civilians, then it will gain points in the media war and win sympathy abroad.

They would simply shoot us and kill us

Filmmaker Michael Grynszpan wrote on Facebook that a Spanish journalist had given him a straightforward explanation as to why images of Hamas terrorists were not appearing in the media. “It’s very simple. We did see Hamas people there, launching rockets. They were close to our hotel, but if ever we dared pointing our camera on them, they would simply shoot at us and kill us.”

New York Times executive Eileen Murphy offered another reason for the lack of images of terrorist operatives appearing in newspapers. “It is very difficult to identify Hamas because they don’t have uniforms or any visible insignia.”


IDF Blog

Source: http://www.idfblog.com/blog/2014/08/07/invisible-face-hamas/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

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