On the ground, in the besieged Gaza Strip, the recent escalation of violence has taken a devastating toll. Between October 7th and 24th, over 2,900 children tragically lost their lives, representing roughly 40% of the total death toll, which has now exceeded 7,000.
This latest assault against Palestinians began after an unexpected attack by the armed group Hamas caught authorities in Tel Aviv completely off guard.
However, amidst this conflict, there is a less-discussed casualty, and it's a casualty common to most wars – the truth
As the conflict continues, a torrent of disinformation driven by the unrestricted flow on social media, seems to be inflaming hostility towards Palestinians and propagating Islamophobia. Experts who have been closely monitoring the global web of false information were quick to observe that within hours of the Hamas attack, social media platforms were flooded with both support for Israel and fake news.
“The scale of misinformation this time was horrific and unimaginable,” Muhammad Zubair, a Bangalore-based fact checking expert, told The Atlantic. Scouring the internet for propaganda and fake news an hour after midnight that day, he witnessed a significant number of misleading posts on Indian social media.
Zubair wasn't the only one in his field to be taken aback by the sheer scale of this swiftly developing assault on truth that day. Several observers noted that verified accounts on X, previously known as Twitter, were promoting misleading information that depicted Palestinians as the aggressors.
Megha Bahree, a journalist working for Al Jazeera, reported that top 10 fake news posts on X, related to the Israel-Hamas conflict originated or were spread by users from India. According to her article, each of these posts gained millions of views. To better understand how political narratives about the conflict were being shaped, Bahree relies on an assessment of India’s social media landscape carried out by the Delhi-based Narrative Research Lab (NRL). A review of 4,316 tweets, of which 2,200 included words about the Israel-Hamas war, the NRL reveals that a majority of the posts related to the conflict were in favor of Israel. Al Jazeera reported, citing Sarabjot Singh, the lab’s co-founder, that over 1,250 were in support of Israel, while around 250 expressed pro-Palestinian sentiments. In an effort to assess social media conversations, the lab also examined two hashtags: "#IstandwithIsrael" and "#IsraelPalestineWar." While the former was widely used on a global scale, the lab identified a "significant" presence of Indian accounts using it.
Interestingly, India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, was among the first world leaders to express support for Israel shortly after the October 7th attack. On X, he said: “Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.”
A deeper analysis of the expansive social media landscape reveals that in recent weeks, Indian right-wing accounts, often featuring the Indian flag alongside the Israeli one, have actively voiced strong online support for Israel. These accounts have also emerged as significant sources for disseminating anti-Palestine disinformation, much of which has been debunked by BOOM, one of India’s most reputed fact-checking services.
Suresh Chavhanke, the editor-in-chief of Sudarshan News, a right-wing channel, is among those accounts. Chavhanke shared a clip on X showing an Israeli representative tearing up a 20-page United Nations report documenting human rights violations. It's worth noting that this particular clip is two years old. Chavhanke and numerous other verified accounts have propelled false reports to unprecedented levels of virality.
In one case, an account based in India started sharing a video alleging the abduction of young girls as sex slaves by a "Palestinian" fighter. However, it appears that the video was more likely footage from a school trip to Jerusalem. Despite its relatively low quality, a closer examination conducted by Al Jazeera reveals girls engaged in happy conversations and using their phones.
Similarly, another video circulated falsely showed Hamas kidnapping a Jewish baby. This clip received over a million views in a single post. Collectively, the top misleading tweets generated more than 3 million impressions on X and are unrelated to any kidnapping incident or events in Gaza during this recent episode of violence. A multitude of social media posts from India on other platforms called for an end to the conflict in Hebrew, while an equally significant number of posts advocated for the annihilation of Gaza in Hindi.
Historians who have been examining this situation believe that India has undergone significant transformation in recent times, and one contributing factor to this shift is the diminishing memory of English colonialism. Concurrently, there has been a growing perception of the Mughals and Muslims as the historical colonisers. "The global community will have to struggle with the evolving mindset of India's Hindu majority, which, unfortunately, has not been able to make a fair assessment of the Israeli occupation of Palestine," explained one Delhi-based historian who did not want to be named.
Over half a century ago, India became the first non-Arab nation to acknowledge the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the "sole and legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people, consistent with its history of support. However, that has changed since Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014. Three years after taking office, the right-wing leader became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel. That was the turning point.
“The political landscape in India has shifted from "a predominantly pro-Palestine environment to a complete reversal, now entirely aligned with the Israeli stance," noted Dr. Talat Wizarat, former chairperson of the Department of International Relations at the University of Karachi.
To explain the shift in India’s policy, which until 2014 was fairly neutral, Dr. Wizarat pointed out that both Israel and India have colonised land that belongs to the Muslims. “The Hindu nationalists and Zionists have reached a point of ideological convergence,” the Karachi-based expert added.
According to Dr. Wizarat, Hindutva assigns responsibility to Muslims worldwide for various issues and acts of terrorism. "Both Zionists and Hindutva share a common anti-Muslim and anti-Islam stance, without a doubt," she elaborated.
Dr. Wizarat highlighted the alarming parallels in their persecution. "Both align with the United States, follow similar operational methods, share the same worldview, and employ similar policies to suppress Muslim communities in Kashmir and Palestine. Their methods of persecution and colonisation are remarkably alike."
Wizarat noted that Modi draws inspiration from Benjamin Netanyahu's playbook and adopts similar tactics in the persecution of Palestinians. “Well, short of bombing Kashmir, Modi has applied all of it,” the expert added.
She expressed her surprise at the disconnect between Indians, who have endured the cruelty of colonialism, and the plight of the people of Gaza, who have borne the brunt of settler colonialism imposed by Israel.
India is perceived to have a closer alignment with Israel and its major supporter, the United States. Some pro-Palestine protesters have reported being targeted by the government. For instance, according to an Al Jazeera report, a week after the Gaza assault began, police in Hamirpur district of India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, were seeking Muslim scholars Atif Chaudhary and Suhail Ansari. Their alleged offense was sharing a WhatsApp display photo that read: "I stand with Palestine." The two men were charged with promoting enmity between social groups. Ansari, according to media reports, is currently under arrest, while Chaudhary is evading the police. In the same state, which is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), four students from Aligarh Muslim University were booked by the police for staging a pro-Palestine march on campus a day after the Gaza assault began on October 7.
In the national capital, New Delhi, there have been instances of individuals being detained during rallies organised by student groups, activists, and concerned citisens in a show of solidarity with the Palestinians since October 7.
However, when the Hindu far-right group Bajrang Dal organised a pro-Israel march in the same city of Aligarh, where they chanted slogans such as "Down with Palestine, down with Hamas," no action was taken against them by the authorities.
According to Dr. Wizarat, it is crucial to recognise the current leadership in both India and Israel. She highlights that Israel is currently under the influence of right-wing leadership, and the same holds true for India.
"Both have systems rooted in racism and a strong belief in hierarchical structures. Zionism and Hindutva share a similar sense of superiority and they have a similar enemy in the Muslims of Palestine and Kashmir,” the expert explained. The occupation of Gaza and Kashmir, as Wizarat pointed out, exhibits striking similarities. "The human rights violations, territorial encroachments, and dehumanisation are all remarkably similar when closely examined."
India has found a new ally in its campaign to stigmatise Muslims as terrorists, and it could hardly have chosen a more fitting partner than Israel. Both leaders, Modi and Netanyahu, have often relied on targeting Muslims throughout much of their political careers.
But this alliance goes beyond ideological convergence. In a recent development, a court in Qatar sentenced eight retired Indian Navy personnel to death for undisclosed espionage charges. According to media reports, after months of detention, Qatari authorities disclosed that the eight individuals were accused of spying on Qatar's confidential submarine program for Israel.
Last year, in another significant move, the New York Times reported that the Indian government, under the leadership of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, obtained spyware from Israel as part of a weapons purchase agreement signed during his maiden visit to Israel. Authorities in New Delhi refuted claims of acquiring Israeli-made spyware, alleged to have been used for infecting the phones of political opponents, human rights activists, and journalists within India. According to the New York Times, Pegasus, alongside a missile system, constituted the central components of an approximately $2 billion deal involving advanced weaponry and intelligence tools at that time.
"India and Israel have a longstanding collaboration. Reports suggest that they have been working together on various intelligence and other endeavors for several years, with an increased focus on such cooperation since Modi assumed power," said Wizarat.
She indicated that this collaboration will persist in their efforts to shape the global discourse surrounding two of the longest conflicts in human history. "We shouldn't be astonished when we see endeavors to distort the realities surrounding the suffering of Muslims in Kashmir and Palestine, carried out by their respective aggressors, Israel and India."