In Israel, the “Law for Preventing Harm to State Security by Foreign Broadcasting Entities,” commonly known as “Al Jazeera Law,” is evolving into a permanent shut down of media outlets, after initially being treated as a temporary shut down of outlets circumstantially. According to the Seventh Eye, Israeli media watchdogs, the Knesset is currently pushing for an amendment that would also allow the Communications Minister and the National Security Minister to shut down any media outlet—including Israeli media outlets— under any pretext they choose without judicial oversight or time limitation, as well as to disrupt satellite signals reaching Israel, thus curbing Israelis’ ability to browse the internet.
When Israel goes to war, it takes its silencing tool box with it. The tools they utilize include: gag orders against the media, as was the case when Iranian cyberattacks would go uncommunicated by the press, the killing of journalists— approximately 200 so far in Gaza since 2023, the shut down or limitation of outlets’ ability to report— notably Al Jazeera’s shut down as well as sanctions on Haaretz, propaganda strategies and agents dressed as the multi million dollar hasbara, AI bots and mass online system countering narratives, and finally, intimidation through harassment and detention, resurfacing with the latest arrest of Nasser Laham, one of Palestine’s renown senior journalists and editor and chief of Ma’an.
Israel utilizes all these tools to shape public opinion and fight for the legitimacy of Israel’s actions.
With no clarity on the definition of what makes a particular coverage a threat to national security, one would assume that a threat is thus any narrative that isn’t scripted within the prime minister’s office chambers. News is becoming a creative writing session, so distasteful and delusional that the hasbara narrative is dismantled from the inside before it even gets out to fool the world. In a recent article, “Hasbara? Go explain Israel,” former senior editor at Jerusalem Post Laurence Rifkin reflected on his work as a young journalist during Israeli wars:
“While not everything that happened in and around Israel in the early 1980s could be justified, there generally was an explanation. Today, though, much of what is transpiring can be neither justified nor explained.
There’s no lesson in it anymore. It’s merely a reminder of how terrible things can turn out when one man will seemingly do anything to stay in power.”
Their propaganda apparatus, rooted in state narratives, has gone too far with its fictional takes on events that are too wild to even be relevant to the current context. One such example is when the head of the Arab media division of the Israeli military, Avichay Adraee commented on the shooting of starving Palestinians in Gaza on X:
Translation: #Exclusive: This is how all of Hamas’s lies collapsed
In a heart‑stirring scene this afternoon,
IDF soldiers stand firm…
And just a few meters away—numbers of Gaza residents receive the humanitarian aid that entered the Gaza Strip. Not a single shot was fired.
The order was clear: do not shoot.
And the Palestinians’ reaction? It wasn’t fear… it was hope.
Civilians began welcoming and cheering our soldiers, as if they saw in them life after darkness. Anyone who has lived on Hamas’s lies knows that our soldiers and our presence are a source of hope. No starvation, no deliberate killing, no intentional targeting of those waiting for aid.
There is Hamas propaganda with empty media mouthpieces that spread lies to save what’s left of defeated Hamas
Adraee wants us to register that the IDF — who have killed more than 60,000 Palestinians (excluding the ones who are still unaccounted for under the rubble), systematically starved them since March 2, 2025, and now shooting them down as they approach the limited food, invoke feelings of “hope,” “cheers,” and “life after darkness” in Gazans.
The audacity of injecting positive perception to the atrocious scene of shooting people running towards food after starving them is really something only Israel would attempt. These propaganda agents are sinking their own ship which Hasbara alone can’t keep afloat. Therefore, now, blocking news is seen as an escalation to control the narrative.
Overwhelming evidence of the Israeli attack that resulted in the death of 73 Palestinians was confirmed later by the World Food Program Gaza Convoy Incident Statement in which organization chief Cindy McClain detailed the incident:
“This is one of the worst tragedies we’ve seen so far in this, in this particular war… we began our trek down the road, and what we saw were thousands of people running towards us, and they were hungry. They’re starving and all of a sudden, the Israeli tanks, Israeli guns, uh, Israeli weapons from all kinds started firing on the crowd. It’s something that I hope never happens again…our people were there too, and they were put in grave danger as a result of that. No humanitarian aid worker should ever be a target of anything.”
In a United Nations report,“UN staff now fainting from hunger, exhaustion; WHO worker detained,” issued on July 22, 2025, the organization describes how seeking food “has become as deadly as the bombardments” in Gaza. The report documents that 1054 people died because of starvation and almost 100,000 women and children are currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition and are in need of treatment as soon as possible.
The world watches but with powerless literature conveying condemnation. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned that the killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible and that all options remain on the table if Israel fails to meet its commitments; Belgium’s foreign minister Hadja Lahbib and other Western diplomats likewise condemned Israel’s treatment of Gaza’s civilians and the dangerous way aid is being delivered. A bloc of 28 countries said Israel’s obstruction of essential humanitarian assistance is unacceptable and demanded compliance with international humanitarian law, while UN Secretary‑General António Guterres described the situation as a “horror show” amid rising starvation deaths.
Meanwhile, Israeli politicians were fantasizing about beaches and hotels amid a humanitarian catastrophe in a conference titled “The Gaza Riviera – From Vision to Reality.” By all standards, this isn’t a normal response to a humanitarian catastrophe.
As Gaza faces mass starvation and aid‑line killings, on July 22, 2025, far‑right lawmakers in the Knesset touted annexing the Strip, re‑establishing Jewish settlements and even turning Gaza into a tourist “resort” once Palestinians are ‘removed’. The event was organized by Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit MKs. Speakers cast the post‑genocide period as a “tremendous opportunity,” playing off earlier “Riviera” fantasies promoted by Trump‑aligned figures, and echoing long‑standing settlement movements’ plans. All happening on the decaying bodies of Palestinians.
In the past two years, Israel fought in the heart of Beirut, Damascus, Sanaa, and Tehran, but will it succeed in defending itself within its borders?
The once self-proclaimed “only democracy in the Middle East” is now joining Egypt, Jordan, UAE, and Saudi Arabia’s approach to press freedom against their own citizens. Despite all the threats to press freedom in Lebanon, it still remains a country where information moves freely —albeit with friction— but isn’t blocked by the state.
