MEMRI, a press monitoring group close to Israeli military intelligence, has published a report titled “The Information Battlefront – Hamas Websites And Social Media Presence.” The report begins:
Hamas
Introduction Along with its military conflict with Israel on the ground, Hamas is investing massive efforts in its information war against Israel online. The organization operates a wide array of websites and social media accounts, for public relations and for its propaganda and psychological warfare.
Hamas’ online apparatus conveys its messages to diverse audiences in many languages; it has numerous official websites and official social media accounts, and there are also unofficial or semi-official websites and social media accounts that are affiliated with it. The official websites supply regularly updated content, including official statements by Hamas leaders and articles by its members and supporters who express the organization’s positions and policies, along with a steady stream of updates about the situation in the Gaza Strip. They also deal extensively with Hamas’ conflict with Israel and with its rivalry with regional opponents such as Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.
Hamas websites address different types of audiences: Sites in Arabic deliver information and instructions to the local Gaza population,[1] to supporters in the West Bank and Israel, and to supporters in the wider Arab and Muslim world. Some sites even have multiple pages in Western languages such as English, French, and Russian, to bring Hamas’ message to sympathizers in the Western world; sites in Turkish, Farsi, Indonesian and Urdu are aimed at the public in Muslim countries.
It should be noted that each of Hamas’ various online outlets are tailored to a specific audience. While its Arabic-language websites and social media outlets focus on glorifying the jihad against Israel, and praising its fighters’ martyrdom and even the martyrdom of its civilians, the websites in Western languages emphasize Israel’s aggression and the deaths of innocent civilians.
