Hassan and Ahmed

Conversations from a Jihadist back room - 8

Hassan and Ahmed are two mid-level backroom terrorist operatives in Gaza. Here we follow their observations and comments about how they see their ‘struggle’ and the outside world’s reaction to it. Think in terms of the past UK Bird and Fortune or current US Saturday Night Live political lampoons.

While being satire, these exchanges will generally focus on current ‘hot-button’ topics. This week the main subject is the ups and downs of the media war.

Hassan: I fear they’ve gone too far this time.

Ahmed: Why? What’s happened?

Hassan: You know we talked before about how, while we might be losing the war on the ground, at least we were winning the media war?

Ahmed: Yes, because we most decidedly are. The media in the West appear to love an underdog, and they seem to take our stories from our health ministry and other sources without question.

Hassan: (Gestures) As has happened this time as well. Our health Ministry put out a story that tank and rifle fire from the Israelis near a new aid depot in Rafah had killed 31 people. It was picked up by various news agencies and spread worldwide within the hour.

Ahmed: (Shrugs) Okay. Mission accomplished. What’s the problem?

Hasssan: Problem is, none of it was true. Not a shred of it.

Ahmed: (Brow knits) I still don’t see the problem. We’ve put out false news stories before and they’ve been swallowed by the media and our many followers and spread worldwide. In fact, most of our stories are false or at least wildly exaggerated. As long as Israel has been demonized, then the main aim of putting out those stories has been satisfied.

Hassan: As may be. But this time the denials have come in particularly strong, and from a reliable independent source – GHF, the American organization running this new aid programme. They’ve said there was no Israeli fire, tanks or guns, by their aid depot in Rafah. Food was handed out without incident.

Ahmed: (Holds a hand out) Americans? Just claim they’re in league with the Israelis and so covering up.

Hassan: Oh, don’t worry, they’re trying all sorts. Had a Red Cross Field Hospital confirm a number of deaths – 24 or 27, I can’t remember.

Ahmed: (Looks vague) So, if this new American aid outfit is claiming no Israeli fire, where are the bodies coming from?

Hassan: That’s the problem. It appears that our Hamas brothers fired on some people by their own aid depot in another location, and so sought to blame it on the Israelis. So, they run the bodies into a local Red Cross Centre and make the claim about Israeli tank and rifle fire, and it gets accepted and news spreads. The Red Cross even had an English Doctor there spreading the news, so it looked good for the BBC, CNN and others. Al-Jazeera ran with a great headline: ‘Israel kills 31 Palestinians while they desperately try and get food aid.’

Ahmed: I still see everything running according to plan. Don’t see the problem.

Hassan: Problem is the voices on the other side denying and showing firm proof to back up that denial, including video footage, has become stronger. The balance is tipping in their favour. Even the White House Press department has now got involved, giving the BBC a grilling over their ‘false’ reporting.

Ahmed: I see. That denial does appear stronger and more troublesome than usual.

Hassan: Oh, don’t worry. Our side are not giving up without a fight. CNN came out with a report later doubling down on their initial report and saying they had ‘proof’ of Israeli fire at the Rafah aid site. Thankfully, nobody seems to have picked up that four out of five of the ‘contributing’ journalists to that report are local Palestinian journalists – so of course that’s the line they’re going to take. And CNN haven’t thought the report through.

Ahmed: In what way?

Hassan: With GHF saying there was no Israeli fire at the depot, the CNN report tried to claim it was taking place near a roundabout half a mile away. But why on earth would the Israelis help in setting up direct aid supply depots they’re keen to see work, then fire on the people approaching it? Makes no sense. It’s obviously our Hamas brothers trying to lay-off blame on the Israelis – such is the desperation to make this new aid initiative fail. (Gestures) Even the UN News service got involved, saying there was no proof of Hamas interfering with aid distribution, and also that this new method of aid distribution presented ‘other’ problems.

Ahmed: Well, we both know that’s a lie. If our brothers didn’t regularly skim off 20-30% of every aid delivery, we’d have problems funding our arms and paying our men. That’s one of our main sources of revenue, selling those goods on the black market.

Hassan: Exactly. And that’s what’s behind this current drama with accusations flying each side, and also why the UN has got involved. This new aid initiative by GHF threatens UNRWA as well as Hamas, is all part of Trump’s initiative to sideline UNRWA. So, of course UNRWA are up in arms about it, as are our Hamas brothers. They both feel threatened.

Ahmed: (Nods slowly) So, that’s why the story has been invented of Israelis shooting people in Rafah at this aid centre? Our brothers want to discredit it so that it fails, and they get their grip back on aid supplies.

Hassan: Yes, and they’ve even going to the extent of warning people away from collecting aid from these new GHF centres, under threat of getting shot.

Ahmed: And how effective has that been?

Hassan: (Waggles one hand) So, so. People are desperate to get aid and food, so some are taking the risk. That might be why our brothers shot some people at another aid depot. But of course all this desperation and grappling for aid and food is getting blamed on the Israelis anyway, so still some strong cards being played with the media.

Ahmed: (Nods slowly again) But even if you sense a bigger problem coming this time, our information department have weathered these storms before. They’ll just pump out bigger and better disinformation to paper the cracks.

Hassan: (Shrugs) We’ve certainly done it before. And sometimes a simple news story gets spun out of control. Look at the ‘children head-shots’ story. We got a few doctors at hospitals reporting about the number of Palestinian children found dead with head-shot wounds, and the next thing the media are reporting that ‘hundreds’ of Palestinian children are getting shot through the head, as if Israeli forces are firing at children indiscriminately. There’s a basis of truth in the initial reporting, but we know what lays behind it – though, of course, we’re never going to come out with an admission about our own child soldiers. And incredibly the media never probes and questions us about it.

Ahmed: (Nods knowingly) How many of them have we lost so far?

Hassan: Could be as many as four-fifty or five hundred. But out of a force of fourteen thousand child soldiers, that’s to be expected. And not all with head shots, a number with chest shots. But of course if you’re raising your head above a parapet or ledge to fire at Israeli soldiers, that’s the first thing to get hit with return sniper fire. Sadly, we’ve had to use even more child soldiers this past four or five months due to so many of our brothers being martyred by the Israelis, but we try to make sure they’re at least twelve. (Shrugs) Some of the fourteen and fifteen year olds are as burly as adults, you’d hardly know the difference. But as long as they’re under eighteen, the doctors making those reports on ‘children being shot through the head’ aren't lying.

Ahmed: I read a Saudi news report that we’ve recruited as many as thirty-thousand child soldiers because of the losses in our ranks these past months.

Hassan: It’s not that high. Maybe fifteen thousand at most.

Ahmed: Martyrs so young is regretful (Nods sombrely). But at least with these ‘child head shot’ reports there’s the reward of making the Israelis look monstrous, reinforcing the ‘child and women’ killers label we seek for them. Plus of course the glory of all the Israeli soldiers they’ve killed before being martyred. But why won’t something similar work with this new aid situation?

Hassan: Believe me, they’re trying. Stories are flying out from the UN and Red Cross about the aid situation – but this new organization, GHF, is giving aid to the people here in Gaza directly for the first time – so eyebrows are starting to raise: why the problem? And when you combine that with past stories about UNRWA taking part in October 7^th and the Red Cross just being a ‘taxi service’ for us, all of that is coming home to roost. Because for one of the first times, people are seeing why UNRWA and the Red Cross would support these invented stories about aid distribution and Israelis shooting at crowds trying to get aid. Suddenly there’s a motive, which there wasn’t before.

Ahmed: (Thoughtful for a moment). Little chance of either going against our accounts since the Red Cross and Red Crescent are 85% local Palestinians, and UNRWA more like 99%. They’re almost duty-bound to toe the line.

Hassan: Absolutely. To do otherwise, they’d risk being shot as Israeli collaborators. Or at the very least being banned from Gaza, as we do with all foreign journalists who write negatively about us.

Ahmed: (Smiles thinly). Strange how few if any have done so. Quite an effective policy.

Hassan: Yes. But I fear we might have cried wolf too many times. This time the protests from UNRWA and the Red Cross are being seen through, the cracks beginning to show. And another factor: now with GHF there’s another aid organization on the ground to give an account of events.

Ahmed: How will that effect things, make a difference?

Hassan: (Gestures). Put it this way. If that Rafah aid depot had been run by UNRWA - when we came out with our story about Israeli tank and rifle fire on the people, they’d have just gone along with it. It was GHF who issued the denial, along with video evidence to back it up. So, not only have our brothers probably lost their aid skimming operation, but also a likely block in false information feeding.

Ahmed: (Eases breath). And that’s why the flood of reports to, as usual, demonize Israel, but also now discredit this new aid operation.

Hassan: Precisely. But the backlash has been heavier than normal this time, so I fear the media war might have finally started to tilt against us.

Ahmed: (Smiles gently). Perhaps fiery Francesca, our favourite UN mouthpiece, could join the fray, say a few words in support.

Hassan: Don’t worry, she’s already spoken out against this change of aid situation. But I don’t think it will help this time. After claiming the Israelis had raped and tortured thousands of children held in their prisons – when in fact there were less than 300 children held in Israeli prisons – she lost a lot of credibility with the mainstream media. Few people take her seriously anymore.

Ahmed: So, you don’t think our brothers’ aims of trying to discredit this new aid organization will work?

Hassan: No. And now the die has been cast that there’s a Hamas and UNRWA motive in trying to discredit this new aid operation, I think any added voices will just make the situation look more suspect. I fear this is one media battle we might have lost. And there might be more to follow.

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John Matthews is an experienced writer and journalist. The author of 24 books, including two centred around WW2 and the holocaust in the name of J.C. Maetis (his father’s original Jewish name) his first experience of writing about the Middle East came as a war correspondent covering the last years of the Lebanese Civil War, which led to his second book, ‘The Crescents of the Moon’. He has since written on the subject for a number of journals, including The Times, Sunday Times, Newsweek, The Independent and The Spectator. He was also in the run-up to the millennium editor of European Brief, the main magazine for the European Parliament, editing the likes of Tony Blair, Al Gore and Henry Kissinger on subjects ranging from the fall of the Berlin Wall and European unity, climate change and nuclear fusion to, once again, the Middle East. He lives in London with his wife and family.

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