Hamas launched a war with Israel in social networks

The number of casualties on the part of Palestinians and Israelis is growing almost every day as a result another escalation of violence in Israel. On Wednesday, the Israeli police, with the support of the army, launched a large operation to block certain areas of East Jerusalem after a wave of armed attacks by Palestinians. Security measures strengthened throughout the country.

Israel says Palestinian government incites people to attackand those who do this deny Israel’s very right to exist. Now there is no evidence that the attacks are organized by someone, but on the social networks the Palestinians rejoice at the victims among the Israelis and call for new attacks.

After the first attacks, the Hamas movement, which rules the Gaza Strip and is active in East Jerusalem, posted a video on the Internet calling on Arabs to kill Jews and start a new, third intifada. The video shows a staged scene in which two “Jews” mock Arab children, and then an Arab passer-by stabs the “Jews.”

This clip has been removed from a HAMAS account on YouTube, after the Israeli Foreign Ministry said it praises violence and calls for new attacks.

Despite this, the hashtags “Jerusalem Intifada” and “Knife Intifada” are becoming increasingly popular on Palestinian social media, and clips and messages have appeared on YouTube and Facebook praising the attacks on Israelis and calling for further acts of violence.

Many of the pictures and videos taken by mobile phones and surveillance cameras that recorded the attacks and their consequences, almost instantly hit the Internet. Israel fears that cadres who can see how security forces are shooting at the attackers can cause anger among the Palestinian population and lead to new attacks.

Experts also note an increase in anti-Arab statements in Israeli social networks, the newspaper Haaretz writes. She argues that calls for violence in Israeli networks have increased dramatically after the first attacks of Palestinians armed with knives.

Palestinians have already organized two intifada in 1980-s and 2000-s. Given the fact that at the moment the peace talks seem to be at a standstill, some observers wonder whether the third intifada has not started.

So far, attacks with the use of cold arms seem to be spontaneous, and although they are praised on social networks by radical groups and the FATH movement led by Mahmud Abbas, the escalation of violence is not in the interests of the Palestinians.

As a result of the almost daily attacks of Palestinians and Israeli Arabs on Jews, which lasted about two weeks, dozens of Israelis killed and injured.