Published: 15 February 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Last summer, members of Hezbollah developed the habit of tweeting greetings from their posts in Syria to loved ones back in Lebanon. One combatant, his face unseen in the photo, thought it funny to address Israeli army spokesman Maj. Avichay Adraee directly by holding up a cardboard sign: “We are practicing on the Nusra Front in preparation to occupy the Galilee.”
“I thought: ‘This is nice. Should I let it be or try something we’ve never done before: Engage the enemy himself?’”recalled Adraee, Israel’s iconic spokesman to Arabic-language media.
Adraee retorted on Facebook, bashing Hezbollah for attacking a field hospital that treats Syrian refugees in the Arsal region, near the border with Lebanon.
“My response, I thought, left us even,” Adraee said. “But the following day another fighter from [Hezbollah’s] Radwan Force appeared, in full fatigue, with a similar sign.
At this point, Adraee and his team decided to up the ante. IDF intelligence provided him with photos of undercover Hezbollah agents positioned along the border with Israel. Adraee promptly published the images among the Syrian population, adding a warning that “these are Hezbollah men endangering you.”
FULL STORY The IDF’s secret social-media-warfare weapon (Tablet)
Photo: Middle-East Eye, December 2017
