An exclusive investigation of +972 Magazine revealed the existence of a secret unit within the Israeli army known as the “legitimacy cell”, established after the attacks of October 7, 2023. Its purpose, according to intelligence sources consulted, was not security but rather the management of the international narrative: “treating the media as a battlefield.”
The unit was dedicated to collecting intelligence from Gaza that could support Israel’s reputation in global media, in particular to neutralize criticism around the murder of journalists, such as the recent case of Al Jazeera reporter, Anas Al-Sharif. As the +972 report “motivation was not security, but public relations”, driven by “anger because the reporters based in Gaza were ‘staining [el] name [de Israel] in front of the world ‘”.
The unit was not limited to misinforming journalists; He also sought to justify military actions against civil infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, presenting them as Hamas bases. The data collected were shared even with the US, in order to maintain the armament flow indispensable to prolong the conflict without major external pressures.
When the international press intensified criticism for attacks on journalists, the cell responded urgently, he points out in report. In the case of Al-Sharif, Al Jazzera journalist killed with his team last week, the report indicates that according to the documents published by the Army, which have not been verified independently, it was recruited by Hamas in 2013 and remained active until it was injured in 2017, which means that, even if the documents were exact, they suggest that they did not participate in the October 2023 offensive.
The same goes for the case of the journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul, who died in an Israeli air attack in July 2024 along with his cameraman in the city of Gaza. A month later, the army said it was an “operational of the military and terrorist wing of Nukhba”, citing a 2021 document allegedly recovered from a “Hamas computer.” However, this document claimed that he received his military rank in 2007, when he was only 10 years old, and seven years before he was allegedly recruited in Hamas.
With only 28 years, Al-Sharif had become one of Gaza’s most recognized journalists. It is among the 186 reporters and media workers killed in the Strip since October 7, according to the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ), the deadliest period for journalists since the group began to collect data in 1992. Other organizations have estimated the number of deaths in 270.
“If these words come to you, you should know that Israel has managed to kill me and silence my voice,” Al-Sharif wrote in his last message, posted posthumously on his social networks. “I have lived pain in all its details, I have experienced suffering and loss many times, but I never hesitated to transmit the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification.”
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
