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<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Understanding Psychological Warfare as Israel Prepares Its New Gaza Offensive</h1>August 22, 2025</div>
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A huge disinformation campaign has been used to intimidate and silence pro-Palestinian voices. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/robert-inlakesh" title="Display all articles for Robert Inlakesh">Robert Inlakesh</a></strong></p>
<blockquote>
<h3><span>The point here is that Israel is committing a genocide; it has
not once launched a campaign that seeks to actually destroy Hamas
militarily. They seek to force the population to submit.</span></h3>
</blockquote>
<p><span>As Israel threatens its new offensive aimed at occupying Gaza
City, dubbed \u201cOperation Gideon\u2019s Chariots II\u201d, a psychological warfare
campaign is taking place against the people of Gaza, one that the
corporate media has participated in. This comes despite Israel\u2019s
military leadership knowing well that its occupation plans are doomed to
fail.</span></p>
<p><span>On August 4, Israeli media began leaking reports that its Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made the decision to occupy the
entirety of the Gaza Strip, replacing previous proposals to annex large
portions of the territory. This then created headlines and spread fear
across Gaza over what Israel has in store next for the brutalised and
traumatized population.</span></p>
<p><span>Initially, Israeli Channel 12 and 14 had broken the reports
citing an anonymous source in the Prime Minister\u2019s office. Notably, when
Channel 12 reported on the breaking news scoop live on air, their
analyst appeared perplexed by the report. Channel 14 had also stated
earlier that day that Israel had reportedly ordered the assassination of
Hamas leaders abroad, another strange leak, as this could easily
jeopardize operations that rely on the element of surprise.</span></p>
<p><span>By the end of the day, the Hebrew media had switched their
reports to focus on a proposed occupation of Gaza City, in the north of
the besieged territory, and not the entirety of the Strip. The next day,
however, on August 5, Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said he sought a \u201c</span><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpqv2qjg5vvo"><span>full conquest</span></a><span>\u201d of Gaza according to a \u201csenior official\u201d in his office.</span></p>
<p><span>First, a mini-cabinet meeting, followed by an 8-hour cabinet
meeting, was convened to agree upon and approve the occupation plan for
Gaza City specifically. On August 8, the cabinet approved the plan,
which was followed by the release of</span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/satellite-images-show-israel-building-forces-possible-ground-invasion-rcna223722"><span> satellite imagery</span></a><span> by NBC News that featured a reported military buildup at the \u2018Karni Crossing\u2019.</span></p>
<p><span>Then came the assassination of Gaza\u2019s most loved and well-known
reporter, Anas al-Sharif, a massive blow to the entire population of
the besieged coastal enclave on August 10.</span></p>
<p><b>Psychological Warfare as Israel\u2019s Primary Tactic</b></p>
<p><span>The reason why it is paramount that we look at the buildup to
Israel\u2019s offensive is that this is as much part of the war as any ground
efforts, and this must be understood by both the public and journalists
alike. Fear is the greatest means of achieving forced displacement of
Palestinians, which often fails in the absence of effective propaganda.</span></p>
<p><span>From the very beginning, the way the plans were leaked to the
Israeli media was suspect and was designed to instill both confusion and
fear, which is why nobody could even decipher what the plan
specifically sought to achieve and how. Keep in mind here that both the
reports of total occupation and the occupation of Gaza City alone had
come from sources working for the PM\u2019s office.</span></p>
<p><span>Then came the reports of internal divisions erupting between
the Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, and the military Chief of
Staff, Eyal Zamir. All of this from anonymous sources or carefully
calibrated public announcements. Why is this even suspect? Because
Israel imposes strict military censorship over everything it does, but
suddenly we have all these reports from anonymous sources about clashes
over the military strategy in Gaza.</span></p>
<p><span>Although these disagreements could be genuine, they could also
be purposefully misleading and misdirecting attention away from the
government\u2019s broader regional ambitions, such as preparations for
attacking Lebanon and/or Iran.</span></p>
<p><span>What is certainly suspect is the satellite imagery released by
NBC News, featuring a military buildup. This imagery had to have been
cleared by the Israeli military in order for it to end up in the hands
of the corporate media. Satellite imagery around military sites is
blocked otherwise. </span></p>
<p><span>Israel\u2019s military censorship is so incredibly strict that we
still have no proper damage assessment reports from either the 12-day
Iran war, nor the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict last year, let alone it
being possible for foreign media agencies to gain access at will to
imagery of significant military buildups without there being direct
approval for them to access such images.</span></p>
<p><span>If we also look at the assassination of Anas Al-Sharif, part of
the reason for murdering him was to stifle the flow of information
coming out of northern Gaza, but this is not the primary reason, as
there remains an abundance of reporters and civilians with smartphones
who are able to continue documenting Israeli atrocities.</span></p>
<p><span>The main reason for killing Anas al-Sharif, at the time they
did, was to spread fear and communicate the message to Palestinians that
they would kill anyone in the upcoming operation. That was the real
reason, psychological warfare.</span></p>
<p><span>Keep in mind that in the buildup to Israel\u2019s \u2018Operation Gideons
Chariots I\u2019, where they claimed the military would annex portions of
Gaza and that this represented \u201cPhase 2\u201d of the war, the Israelis also
assassinated prominent al-Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat on March 24,
starting their operation officially around a month later.</span></p>
<p><span>In the buildup to the first \u2018Gideon\u2019s Chariots\u2019 operation, the
same fearmongering we see today occurred over the allegedly new tactics
and even weapons that Israel was reportedly going to use to \u201ccrush
Hamas\u201d and \u201creturn the hostages\u201d. Donald Trump even proposed that the US
would \u201cown\u201d Gaza.</span></p>
<p><span>The lies about what Israel and the US are set to do have been
endless, all designed to strike fear into the people of Gaza. In
reality, every single time Israel launches a new \u201coperation\u201d in the Gaza
Strip, it results in the use of the exact same tactics that preceded
it.</span></p>
<h4><b>What We Should Expect</b></h4>
<p><span>Although there is no way to precisely predict what Israel is
about to do in the Gaza Strip, we can figure out the nature of the new
operation and what it could realistically result in. To begin with,
Israel simply does not have the capacity to occupy Gaza City without
greatly exhausting its forces, losing huge numbers of soldiers, and
leaving itself open on the northern front with Lebanon.</span></p>
<p><span>According to Israel\u2019s own internal military estimates, setting
up an occupation of Gaza would take between 2 to 5 years, with some
military officials having argued it could take a decade. It will also
take at least 200,000 soldiers to occupy Gaza City alone, and this is a
conservative estimate.</span></p>
<p><span>At the same time, the Israeli military is issuing evacuation
orders to around 850,000 Palestinians living in northern Gaza, which
contradicts their goal of occupation anyway, because that would
constitute ethnic cleansing, not the imposition of a system of
occupation.</span></p>
<p><span>The prominent Israel Lobby cutout think-tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), even </span><a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/make-hamas-face-choice"><span>published</span></a><span>
a recent piece by Israel\u2019s Ehud Yaari, expressing doubts about the
viability of the occupation plan. Below is an important excerpt from
that piece:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span>\u201cOn August 8, Mr. Netanyahu had his cabinet adopt a
resolution to \u2018take control\u2019 of Gaza City after moving its population
of 800,000 to the southern sector of the Strip. The target date was set
to October 7, but few take this threat seriously, especially in view of
the IDF\u2019s grave doubts about the wisdom of the idea and its practical
implications. One also has to keep in mind the fatigue of the combat
units after almost two years of fighting, during which tens of thousands
of reservists were called to serve for unprecedentedly long periods\u2026 </span></p>
<p><span>\u201c\u2026At any rate, Hamas cadres would join incognito the massive
migration of displaced Gazans as they did in Rafah and Khan Younis,
rather than make a hopeless last \u201cheroic\u201d stand. Thus, the doctrine of
separating civilians from Hamas has a very slim chance of success.\u201d</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span>Even the Israelis themselves understand that the plan has no
legs. But why is this? Well, it comes down to some of the points touched
on by Yaari, but it goes much deeper.</span></p>
<p><span>The Guardian recently leaked data from an Israeli military
database, revealing that, in May of 2025, the internal estimates were
that Israel had managed to kill 8,900 Palestinian fighters, which was
only 17% of the total number of people it had killed up until that point
in the Gaza Strip. What is the relevance of mentioning this when it
comes to the occupation plans? It is very simple; it reflects a failure
to even put a dent in the Palestinian armed groups in Gaza.</span></p>
<p><span>According to both Israeli and US intelligence estimates, the
fighting force of Hamas\u2019 Al-Qassam Brigades alone was said to be
anywhere between 30,000 to 50,000 fighters, this is not taking into
account the number of fighters belonging to some dozen armed groups, and
also civilians who decided to take up arms independently in some cases.
All these intelligence agencies also agree that Hamas has recruited
enough fighters to replace those it has lost, according to the
information it makes public.</span></p>
<p><span>Also consider that Israel and the US often project optimistic
statistics and assessments through their media, in the interest of
concealing war crimes and the fact that Israel is currently perpetrating
a genocide.</span></p>
<p><span>As I have argued here in my pieces for the Palestine Chronicle
throughout the genocide, Israel is not going after Hamas on the ground
and waging a war; it is committing a genocide as its primary strategy.</span></p>
<p><span>To reiterate my argument briefly here, the Israelis have
bombarded the Gaza Strip with the intention of making the territory
unlivable and eliminating a large portion of the population. The goal is
very simple: they seek to defeat the people by taking the war to them
directly, and along the way will use their intelligence branches,
special forces, and air force to take out armed fighters, but this is
not the main goal.</span></p>
<p><span>This is why we have no footage of the Israeli military engaging
in intense gunbattles or taking the fight to Hamas, in around 23 months
of all-out war in Gaza. Beyond a few special force raids, the fight on
the ground is never taken to Hamas, and when it comes to the tunnels,
they choose to bomb the entrances or exits, but have not conducted the
kinds of daring operations that would have been necessary to root out
the resistance fighters.</span></p>
<p><span>On the other hand, the battle footage that we do have comes
almost exclusively from the Palestinian side, statistically. We have
countless hours of footage showing ambush operations from the
Palestinian resistance. </span></p>
<p><span>This footage tells us the story of what is happening on the
ground, which is that the Israeli army invades areas in heavily armoured
vehicles and tanks, not daring to put infantry next to these vehicles,
then setting up in fortified positions afterwards, from where they carry
out demolitions or kidnap civilians. Their main targets of each major
incursion into any given area have been hospitals.</span></p>
<p><span>Now, a counterargument to this could be that Israel is perhaps
hiding its battle footage. Yet this argument makes no sense for two
simple reasons: The first is that it would benefit Israel to release
this footage as propaganda, and the second is that there is an abundance
of footage published across all social media platforms from the
soldiers themselves, which further supports the argument I make here.</span></p>
<p><span>The Israeli soldiers only ever publish battle footage when it
is them being ambushed, often falling over each other and scrambling in
the way you would expect people without combat experience to behave. All
the rest of the footage features them blowing up homes, universities,
mosques, and schools for fun, operating bulldozers, or defecating on
floors and wearing the underwear of dead and displaced women, etc. </span></p>
<p><span>Again, this greatly contrasts the mountains of footage showing
Palestinian fighters running up to armoured personnel carriers to throw
IEDs into the vehicles\u2019 hatches, sniper operations, daring ambushes
where militants emerge from tunnels and jump between the rumble of
destroyed buildings to fire an RPG round at a tank from close range. </span></p>
<p><span>The Palestinians are waging a guerrilla war, consisting of
ambush attacks, while Israeli forces stay as far away from danger as
possible, making sure to stay inside their armoured vehicles with the
hope of reducing their overall death toll. Although Israel has been
proven to hide its military casualties, during its war with Hezbollah,
Iran, and Gaza, there does appear to be a massively disproportionate
injury-to-death ratio amongst their forces.</span></p>
<p><span>The most recent Israeli reports indicate that 80,000 soldiers
have been injured, yet they acknowledge losing less than 1,000 at the
hands of the Palestinian resistance groups. These statistics always
change, and often we are told various contradictory casualty counts, but
the official numbers do in fact reflect much higher injury rates than
death rates. </span></p>
<p><span>Eventually, perhaps we will gain access to more accurate
Israeli casualty figures through leaks, like has just happened with the
Palestinian death toll revelation, yet it is clear enough for now what
kind of war is being waged on Gaza, and it is one that targets the
civilian population.</span></p>
<p><span>If Israel actually seeks to occupy Gaza, this will mean that it
must finally change its strategy in the territory and actually go after
Hamas and the other armed groups there. With this will come a massive
surge in Israeli military casualties, news which will begin reaching
their own population and would inevitably drain their fighting force
even further. </span></p>
<p><span>Already, the Israeli military is suffering from a manpower
issue, and its soldiers are fatigued, many refusing to show up for
service when called upon to re-enter Gaza, while around 25,000 of them
suffer from diagnosed mental conditions as a result of their service.</span></p>
<p><span>So we now understand some of the reasons why the occupation project will fail. So what is likely to actually happen? </span></p>
<p><span>If we go by past examples and what Israel is capable of doing,
it is likely that we will see an escalation of bombings, particularly
aimed at killing large numbers of civilians in targeted massacres around
Gaza City. The goal of this would be to try and force people to flee
the area. Some will choose to flee to the south, but it is more probable
that many will simply move to other parts of the north or areas around
Gaza City itself.</span></p>
<p><span>The number of those displaced to the south will depend upon the
fear that Israel is capable of instilling into the displaced refugee
population in the Gaza City area, which is why there is such a campaign
of psychological warfare and such a dragged-out process of approving the
military initiative.</span></p>
<p><span>Next, they are also likely to launch incursions into areas as
they did earlier on during the war, temporarily setting up in fortified
positions and even creating new temporary military bases. This will
depend upon how fierce the resistance to them is and whether they muster
a force capable of performing the tasks they set. Keep in mind that
they have done these incursions many times before, and each time the
results were virtually the same.</span></p>
<p><span>Currently, Israel allegedly controls over 80% of the Gaza
Strip, yet as we have seen in areas like Rafah and Beit Hanoun, the
Palestinian resistance is still capable of carrying out ambushes on
their forces in these allegedly \u201ccleared\u201d and \u201csecured\u201d locations.
Keeping with this, upon entry to Gaza City, the Israeli soldiers would
likely put their flags up and take videos for TikTok and claim they are
victorious, without actually having achieved any of their publicly
stated objectives.</span></p>
<p><span>This analysis here assumes that Israel isn\u2019t simply misleading
the public and preparing for a larger campaign on other fronts, such as
against Lebanon and/or Iran, instead.</span></p>
<p><span>While the Israeli occupying forces will undoubtedly escalate
the nightmare unfolding in Gaza, it is important to understand what they
are actually capable of and what is viable strategically from the
perspective of its leadership.</span></p>
<p><span>In 2014, the Israeli military found out what happens when they
actually try to take on Hamas in a standup fight and know they will
suffer immense losses, so they use the most cowardly tactics ever used
by a modern military. In southern Lebanon, Israel also failed last year
to even seize border villages like Khiam, and this was under the most
favourable circumstances they could have possibly asked for there.</span></p>
<p><span>The point here is that Israel is committing a genocide; it has
not once launched a campaign that seeks to actually destroy Hamas
militarily. They seek to force the population to submit, and with that
comes the defeat of all the armed resistance groups. Yet, the people of
Gaza endure.</span></p>
<p><em>(The Palestine Chronicle)</em></p>
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<p><br></p>
<p><span><em>\u2013 Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary
filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He
contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. </em></span></p></div>
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