GAZAWOOD Founder: Israel Cannot Afford to Ignore the Propaganda War

In an interview with Israel News Pulse, the person behind GAZAWOOD explains how the response to October 7 inspired the project, what volunteers taught its creator about examining footage, and why a largely voluntary operation is building a permanent archive.

For GAZAWOOD's founder, the shock of October 7 extended beyond the massacre itself. The reaction abroad, and the eagerness to embrace images portraying Israel as the aggressor, brought a realization that would become the driving force behind the account.

Before the attack, its creator had regarded the Holocaust as a horror belonging to history. Hamas wanted Israel's destruction, but another catastrophe for the Jewish people had seemed remote. The antisemitism that followed October 7 changed that understanding.

"I suddenly realized that we do not have the luxury of falling asleep even for a second," GAZAWOOD told Israel News Pulse.

The account launched shortly after the massacre to collect what its creator saw as an overlooked weapon against Israel: staged and manipulated Palestinian footage, commonly described by its critics as "Pallywood."

Why the Founder Sees Propaganda as a Security Threat

GAZAWOOD's concern begins with the audience. Scenes that would invite skepticism in another setting, the account argues, were being welcomed by people already eager to believe the worst about Israel.

In that assessment, the consequences extend from social media to government decisions. Propaganda feeds antisemitism, mobilizes protests and creates pressure on countries to act against Israel. In GAZAWOOD's view, this pressure constrains Israel's ability to defeat terrorist organizations while exposing Jews abroad to threats and violence.

"Israel fell completely asleep on the subject of fake news," GAZAWOOD said. "It did not see it as a threat."

Some people connected to Israel's defense establishment have challenged this assessment. Even so, GAZAWOOD remains convinced that the country needs to invest in confronting propaganda as part of its security effort.

That conviction comes with a distinction GAZAWOOD repeatedly emphasizes: the project does not claim that Palestinian suffering is imaginary.

"There is real Palestinian suffering and there is staged Palestinian suffering," GAZAWOOD said, arguing that Hamas exploits both, using civilian suffering and distorted portrayals of it to turn opinion against Israel.

From Theater Classes to Examining Gaza Footage

Its creator brought several years of theater study, film classes and a lifelong interest in filmmaking to the project. Another habit proved relevant: watching Hollywood movies for mistakes.

That background shaped the details that initially attracted attention in footage from Gaza. GAZAWOOD describes recurring camera positions, apparently rehearsed behavior, carefully framed scenes and cuts that seemed to arrive just before something important would become visible.

GAZAWOOD also questioned sequences in which journalists were already positioned near buildings before an announced strike and then filmed people emerging afterward. Viewed together, it argues, such sequences deserved closer examination.

That personal background, however, is the less important part of the story. The larger change came when volunteers began contacting the account.

What the Volunteers Taught GAZAWOOD

The response was initially more than one person could manage. Additional volunteer managers helped organize the work, followed by a specialist discussion group that eventually numbered between 30 and 50 people.

Doctors, filmmakers, police investigators, ballistics experts, sound specialists and makeup artists contributed. Soldiers from outside Israel also participated.

Their discussions shook GAZAWOOD's confidence in any single professional judgment. A doctor might focus on whether an injury looked anatomically convincing, while a makeup artist noticed another detail. A soldier might challenge an assumption about the effect of a particular weapon.

Those disagreements became part of the account's education.

"I have naturally become much more cautious in making determinations," GAZAWOOD said, adding that "without forensic research, it is hard to determine anything with certainty."

The account distinguishes between flagging something suspicious and declaring a scene staged. At the same time, GAZAWOOD argues that repeated patterns become more apparent when large numbers of clips are examined together. Most viewers encounter those videos separately and never see the comparison.

Following a Video Back to Its Context

For footage of a particular strike, GAZAWOOD says the process involves checking news reports, updates in relevant groups and posts by Gazan journalists to establish the location, timing and circumstances.

Restaurant footage follows a different trail. GAZAWOOD monitors businesses' own social media pages, where owners regularly promote their food to local customers.

Those posts interest GAZAWOOD because their immediate purpose is commercial: the owners want people to visit and buy. The account sees them as a substantial source of material missing from much international coverage.

Depending on the investigation, the account also draws on geolocation specialists, metadata expertise and help from people in other fields.

The Investigations That Stayed with the Founder

Asked which investigation remained most memorable, GAZAWOOD named three.

The first concerned what the account describes as a family connection between Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. GAZAWOOD recalls two intensive weeks of research, repeated dead ends and searches through old platforms and archives.

Only part of the findings was published, GAZAWOOD says, because the investigation was so extensive. It also believes the relationship had been deliberately obscured in Gazan media coverage.

The second involved children featured in material promoted by Ms. Rachel. GAZAWOOD says its research found that children presented as suffering from hunger also appeared in cooking content showing substantial quantities of food. Those posts, it argues, challenged the picture being presented to international audiences.

GAZAWOOD also supplied a second post from that investigation.

The third concerned Qamar, the girl shown carrying her younger sister in a widely circulated Gaza video. GAZAWOOD says it identified other footage involving members of the family and later highlighted what it describes as photographer Motaz Azaiza's acknowledgment that the scene was staged.

What stayed with GAZAWOOD was the continued circulation of the image. As the account sees it, the challenges to the story did little to dislodge it once it had become a symbol.

Why Some Research Never Becomes a Post

The account's approach has changed since its early period. GAZAWOOD says its first year involved collecting material already circulating online as examples of Pallywood, often alongside satire. Experience made it more conscious of how delicate the work could be.

Today, much of the research remains unpublished because of unresolved doubts or limited capacity.

One example involved a journalist injured by shrapnel. GAZAWOOD spent considerable time investigating whether the incident had been staged but withheld the material because doubt remained. About a year and a half later, security camera footage emerged showing the journalist actually being hit.

The account has also made mistakes in published posts. It cites a video incorrectly described as AI generated, an incident initially placed in Canada that occurred in Iran, and two restaurant clips whose dates were mixed up.

GAZAWOOD says it removed or corrected the material and published clarifications. Its creator describes intense scrutiny from hostile accounts and media outlets, including attention to linguistic errors, as another reason to be cautious before publishing.

GAZAWOOD also provided another public correction.

Giving the Footage a Permanent Home

The new GAZAWOOD website is intended to make the collected material easier to find and compare.

The site highlights a restaurant archive, which GAZAWOOD describes as containing tens of thousands of videos from the war, alongside a large collection of parties in Gaza.

Other sections group footage under food destruction and overweight and obesity. GAZAWOOD presents these collections as part of an effort to show aspects of life in Gaza that the account believes receive too little attention.

The organizing principle reflects the original reason for starting GAZAWOOD: bringing scattered material together so viewers can examine what it sees as recurring patterns.

A Small Operation with Bigger Ambitions

Followers may imagine a sizeable operation behind the account. The reality is much smaller.

GAZAWOOD was its creator's first introduction to social media. At the beginning, even uploading a post was unfamiliar. Video editing and writing in English presented further difficulties, some of which contributed to mistakes.

Today, the account is run by one person with occasional outside help. In the past, up to two others posted from time to time. The project is independent and supported by donations through Buy Me a Coffee.

GAZAWOOD says it also lost the small amount of revenue it received from X after a coordinated hostile campaign took down its main account and blocked monetization across its accounts. Since then, the work has continued almost entirely on a voluntary basis.

GAZAWOOD wants a much larger investment in this field and believes a well funded team could achieve far more. Another priority is Palestinian education, which it regards as central to preventing future violence and the propaganda that accompanies it.

The frustration is that an inexperienced individual, working with limited resources, felt compelled to take on a task it believes deserves national attention. The ambition is to show how much more could be achieved if the effort had the people, expertise and funding to match.

Explore GAZAWOOD

Visit the GAZAWOOD website, follow @GAZAWOOD2 on X, or browse earlier posts from @GAZAWOOD1.