Palestinian factions race to post snowstorm work on Facebook
Hamas, Fatah and Islamic Jihad took to social media to document their own aid efforts following the region’s winter storm.
Only in Gaza will you see photographs of masked gunmen handing out food aid to families displaced by the storm that battered the Strip last week.
The photos in question, which caused great controversy among social media users, portrayed resistance fighters from the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, and the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad.
Yet, the debate revolved around more than these photographs. Something akin to a propaganda war erupted on the pages of social networking sites, particularly Facebook, as people tried to prove that one of the two governments, the Gaza government or the Ramallah one — or the president’s agencies and other political parties — better served citizens during the storm.
Pictures circulated of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh wearing a civil defense uniform, huddling with children under a blanket in one of the refugee centers and aboard a boat with Interior Minister Fathi Hamad in a street transformed into a raging river. Other photos were disseminated showing Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) carrying loaves of bread in a Ramallah bakery during an inspection tour, in addition to hundreds of other news tidbits and mobile phone messages that each party used to spread its own news.
