When Hamas launched its attack against southern Israel on October 7 it not only caught Israel off guard — it also caught Israel and its global supporters flat-footed in the all too crucial information wars.

Within hours of its attack Hamas’ Qatar-based politburo web operatives flipped the switch on a slickly produced global social media disinformation campaign calculated to trigger an outpouring of pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel sentiment across global social media platforms to amplify (and justify) Hamas’ terror.

The initial disinformation flood was in Arabic directed at Arab social media sites to create sympathy for Hamas for its “defense” of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy places and its “justified” struggle to free Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel.  But its second phase unleashed tens of thousands of fake disinfo bots in other languages to push the Hamas anti-Israel/antisemitic narrative.

The Coalition for a Safer Web (CSW) discovered scores of new hashtags that were created in 13 languages and dialects by the bots.