What’s happened in Gaza and the West Bank since the start of the Iran war?
Analysis Summary
This article strongly argues that Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank are aggressive and cause severe suffering, particularly for Palestinians. It uses words with strong negative connotations and emphasizes high Palestinian death tolls to evoke outrage and persuade the reader to condemn Israel as an oppressive force. The article omits details about Israel's stated security concerns or Palestinian militant actions that might provide context for Israeli operations, presenting these actions as largely unjustified and malicious.
Cross-Outlet PSYOP Detected
This article is part of a narrative being pushed across multiple outlets:
FATE Analysis
Four dimensions of psychological manipulation: how content captures Focus, exploits Authority, triggers Tribal identity, and engineers Emotion.
Focus signals
"With the eyes of the world on the United States and Israel’s war in Iran, Israeli strikes and raids in Gaza and settler attacks and military operations in the occupied West Bank have continued unabated."
This framing uses the 'war in Iran' as a backdrop, suggesting that despite this major global event, other significant and concerning events are still occurring, thereby drawing specific attention to the lesser-covered ongoing issues.
"EXPLAINER Israel has closed the Rafah border crossing, and Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank have continued."
The 'EXPLAINER' tag combined with reporting on recent closures and ongoing attacks creates a sense of immediacy and new information that demands attention.
Authority signals
"United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for Israel to reopen Gaza’s border crossings."
This leverages the moral and institutional authority of the UN Secretary-General to lend weight to the demand for reopening crossings.
"Global rights group Amnesty International released a report saying Palestinian women in Gaza have been 'denied the conditions needed to live and to give life safely' by Israel."
The article uses the report from Amnesty International, a recognized global rights group, to substantiate claims about conditions for Palestinian women, lending credibility through institutional weight.
"Amnesty International released a report saying Palestinian women in Gaza have been 'denied the conditions needed to live and to give life safely' by Israel. The report says pregnant women, as well as those suffering from terminal illness, lack adequate health services in the territory."
Leveraging a report from an established 'global rights group' reinforces the claims made about the impact on women's health by appealing to the organization's reputation and expertise.
Tribe signals
"Israel has killed more than 72,000 people in its genocidal war on Gaza, the majority of them women and children, and reduced almost the entire enclave to rubble. About 1,200 people were killed in Israel and more than 250 taken captive in the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel led by Hamas."
This juxtaposes casualty figures in a way that, while documenting events, creates a clear 'us vs. them' dynamic between parties, characterizing one as overwhelmingly destructive and identifying victims by their affiliation with Gaza, and the other side with deaths from Hamas attacks. The term 'genocidal war' is a strong tribal marker.
"In the West Bank, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them civilians, since the start of the Gaza war, according to Palestinian Ministry of Health figures. At least 45 Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the region in the same period, according to official Israeli figures."
This continues the 'us vs. them' dynamic by presenting casualty figures from both sides, attributing actions to 'Israeli soldiers or settlers' versus 'Palestinian attacks', reinforcing distinct groups.
"Israeli settlers have continued terrorising Palestinians in small hamlets and villages across rural areas of the West Bank."
The phrase 'terrorising Palestinians' by 'Israeli settlers' establishes a clear power imbalance and 'us vs. them' narrative, where one group is the aggressor and the other the victim.
Emotion signals
"Israel has killed more than 72,000 people in its genocidal war on Gaza, the majority of them women and children, and reduced almost the entire enclave to rubble."
The phrase 'genocidal war' is highly charged and, combined with the large number of casualties including 'women and children' and Gaza being 'reduced almost the entire enclave to rubble,' is designed to elicit strong outrage and moral condemnation, potentially beyond what a factual description alone would achieve.
"The war and the closure of the Rafah crossing have caused panic buying in Gaza, where residents who have already endured nearly two and a half years of war fear food shortages."
Describes 'panic buying' and 'fear of food shortages' among a population already suffering, directly engineering fear about the humanitarian situation.
"Israeli settlers have continued terrorising Palestinians in small hamlets and villages across rural areas of the West Bank."
The word 'terrorising' is highly emotionally charged and assigns malicious intent, almost certainly intended to provoke outrage against the settlers.
"Two Palestinian brothers were killed on March 2 by settlers in Qaryut, 4km (2.5 miles) west of Duma, where they were videotaped shooting live fire at Palestinian homes."
The detail of 'videotaped shooting live fire at Palestinian homes' after brothers were killed is designed to evoke strong outrage and a sense of injustice through vivid, disturbing imagery conveyed without direct footage.
"Amnesty International released a report saying Palestinian women in Gaza have been 'denied the conditions needed to live and to give life safely' by Israel."
This quote, while tied to an authority, evokes a sense of deep moral failing and injustice, positioning the reader to feel moral outrage and superiority over those perceived to be denying basic human conditions.
Narrative Analysis (PCP)
How the article reshapes thinking: Perception (what beliefs are targeted), Context (what information is shifted or omitted), and Permission (what behavior is being encouraged).
The article aims to instill the belief that Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank, encompassing military strikes, border closures, and settler violence, are consistently aggressive, disproportionate, and driven by an intent to harm Palestinians. It seeks to establish a perception of Israel as an oppressive force, particularly highlighting the suffering of Palestinian civilians. The repeated emphasis on 'genocidal war,' 'terrorizing Palestinians,' and high death tolls for Palestinians, especially women and children, works to paint a picture of severe injustice and humanitarian catastrophe at the hands of Israel.
The article shifts the context by framing all Israeli actions, whether military operations or settler activities, as part of an 'unabated' and continuous campaign against Palestinians, deliberately linking them to the broader 'war in Iran' to suggest a widespread and coordinated aggression. This framing makes the reported actions, such as border closures, raids, and settler attacks, appear as natural extensions of an aggressive Israeli policy rather than isolated incidents or reactions to specific threats. The use of terms like 'genocidal war' immediately sets a moral context where Israeli actions are inherently evil.
The article omits significant context regarding the specific security concerns or intelligence that might inform Israeli military operations, border closures, or responses to attacks. While it briefly mentions 'attacks on Israel led by Hamas,' it largely omits the ongoing security threats, rocket fire, or violent activities by Palestinian militant groups that Israel frequently cites as justifications for its actions. For instance, while detailing the impact of the Rafah crossing closure, it provides COGAT's stated reason ('security adjustments due to war with Iran') but does not elaborate on why such security adjustments would be deemed necessary by Israel, leaving the reader to infer it is an arbitrary act. Similarly, the 'settler attacks' are presented without any mention of the preceding or accompanying Palestinian aggressions or provocations often cited by settlers, making the attacks appear unprovoked and purely malicious.
The article nudges the reader toward a stance of strong condemnation and moral indignation against Israel. It implicitly grants permission for the reader to view Israel as an aggressor committing atrocities and to express sympathy and support for Palestinians. It encourages a call for international intervention or pressure on Israel to cease its actions, as exemplified by Guterres's call to reopen crossings. The cumulative effect is to foster a sense of urgency and moral obligation to oppose Israeli policies.
SMRP Pattern
Four manipulation maintenance tactics: Socializing the idea as normal, Minimizing concerns, Rationalizing with logic, and Projecting blame.
Red Flags
High-severity indicators: silencing dissent, coordinated messaging, or weaponizing identity to shut down debate.
"The Israeli military’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said the move was a part of 'several necessary security adjustments' that have been implemented in the region due to the war with Iran. ... The Israeli Civil Administration chief, Hisham Ibrahim, told media that the decision was taken in light of Iran launching retaliatory strikes at 'Israel and the entire region'."
Techniques Found(6)
Specific propaganda techniques identified using the SemEval-2023 academic taxonomy of 23 techniques across 6 categories.
"Israel has killed more than 72,000 people in its genocidal war on Gaza"
The term 'genocidal war' is an emotionally charged phrase that evokes strong negative connotations and pre-frames the conflict as an act of genocide, which is a specific legal accusation with a high burden of proof, rather than describing the violence itself. While the death toll is high, labeling the entire conflict as 'genocidal' is a specific and highly inflammatory accusation.
"Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank have continued."
While 'occupied West Bank' is a common and often accurate descriptor in international discourse, the phrase 'Israeli settler attacks' without further context or attribution of blame to individual perpetrators, can be seen as loaded language, collectively attributing hostile actions to an entire group and pre-framing them negatively. The subsequent detailed descriptions of these attacks tend to confirm this framing.
"Israeli settlers have continued terrorising Palestinians in small hamlets and villages across rural areas of the West Bank."
The word 'terrorising' is an emotionally charged term that describes actions in a highly negative and alarming way, shaping reader perception without providing specific, neutral descriptions of the actions themselves in this general statement.
"With the eyes of the world on the United States and Israel’s war in Iran"
This phrase is vague. It refers to a 'war in Iran' involving the US and Israel without clearly defining what 'war' refers to, its nature, or what specific actions constitute this war, leaving the reader to infer or assume details.
"Palestinian women in Gaza have been 'denied the conditions needed to live and to give life safely' by Israel."
The phrase 'denied the conditions needed to live and to give life safely' is an emotionally charged and dramatic statement from the Amnesty report, portraying Israel's actions as directly impairing fundamental human needs rather than describing specific policy outcomes or effects.
"proclaiming 'terrorism and terrorists bring only death, destruction and devastation.'"
This quote, attributed as a proclamation on leaflets, appeals to widely accepted negative values associated with 'terrorism' and its consequences ('death, destruction and devastation') to justify restrictions on movement. It seeks to align the restrictions with a common aversion to such negative outcomes.