By Pishtaz and AFP | 2023-10-11

A grandmother's death live streamed, gunmen's announcements to Israelis their relatives have been killed, or humiliating hostage videos show Hamas's determination to use social media propaganda alongside violence, say analysts, adding that Russian and Iranian trolls are aiding the militant group's efforts.

Mor Bayder's phone did not buzz on October 7 morning -- her grandmother's routine call to ask if she was awake.

Instead, she discovered her grandmother's "brutal murder" during the Hamas attack on a village bordering the Gaza Strip posted on Facebook, Bayder wrote on the social network.

"A terrorist broke into her home, murdered her, took her phone, photographed the horror and posted it on her Facebook wall. That's how we found out," she added.

Speaking to Israeli TV channel Canal 13, a tearful Bayder said the killer had called her aunt to force her to view the images of her grandmother "lying in a pool of blood" in the kibbutz of Nir Oz, just 2km from Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Unprecedented scale

Violence is the recurring theme in many other photos and videos spread online by Hamas or its supporters since the assault began on October 7.

"This is on purpose: The goal is to trigger a sense of helplessness, paralysis and humiliation," said Michael Horowitz, a security analyst at consultancy Le Beck International.

Even the most unbearable images have gone viral, including footage of a woman's partially naked body in the bed of a pick-up truck cheered by armed men.

Her mother has identified her as Shani Louk, a German-Israeli in her 20s who was at a desert rave that turned into a bloodbath early Saturday.

Another widely shared video shows a family huddled together on the ground.

A boy aged just six or seven asks his mother if his slain sister will come back, and she is forced to answer "no" in a sob -- before throwing herself across her son to protect him as the legs of the likely kidnapper approach in front of the lens.

Although such propaganda is not a new addition to Hamas's arsenal, "Today we see much more sophisticated methods of manipulation and propaganda from Hamas," said Ruslan Trad, resident fellow for security research at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Cyber attacks

The militant group has also turned to cyberattacks on Israeli targets to widen its reach.

"Various groups launched dozens of denial-of-service attacks at government and private websites, knocking them offline but causing no lasting damage," the Washington Post reported Monday.

The hacking began Sunday morning and continued through much of Monday.

One particularly effective denial-of-service attack targeted the website of the Jerusalem Post and was claimed by Anonymous Sudan, the paper said.

The group "is allied with KillNet, a Russian nationalist hacking group," it said.

"The Sudan group has added significantly to KillNet's prowess, leading some to speculate that both are fronts for Russian government services," it added.

Russian, Iranian trolls

Hamas narratives have enjoyed amplification online, as they are "systematically spread by Iranian and Russian trolls, and boosted by state media," said David Colon, a professor at the Sciences Po university in Paris.

Even China has an "ambiguous attitude," he said pointing out that video platform TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, "is letting huge amounts of shocking content slide."

By posting videos, Hamas is also providing the clearest evidence that can be traced back to the group in the short as well as long term.

"Hamas and other Palestinian media, associated with it or not, are providing evidence of war crime, which will have an impact," Horowitz said.

The militant group is already classed as a terror organization by the United States and the European Union (EU) following its suicide bombing campaigns in the 1990s and 2000s.

But Trad said the prospect of eventual international legal consequences would not be weighing heavily with the Palestinian militants.

"Hamas and their allies have no worries about being accused of committing war crimes and massacres," he said.