Gaza — Google has entered into a $45 million contract with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to push state propaganda online, raising alarm over Silicon Valley’s complicity in whitewashing Israel’s ongoing Genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
The deal, signed in late June, runs for six months and aims to flood social media with videos and ads denying the starvation crisis in Gaza. Officials have described the campaign using the Hebrew word hasbara, a term widely understood as “propaganda.”
Google’s ad platforms, including YouTube and Display & Video 360, have been central to this disinformation blitz. One widely circulated video, released by Israel’s foreign ministry, declared: “There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie.” The video alone has been viewed more than six million times, despite overwhelming evidence that famine has gripped the besieged enclave.
The timing of the campaign coincides with Israel’s tightening blockade of Gaza on March 2, 2025, which cut off food, medicine, and fuel to 2.3 million residents. Humanitarian agencies reported that by August, 185 people, including 12 children, had died of starvation in a single month, the highest toll since the war began in October 2023. The UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification formally declared Gaza a famine zone.
Despite this catastrophic reality, Netanyahu’s government diverted millions to digital ad firms. Alongside Google, Israel spent $3 million with X (formerly Twitter) and $2.1 million with Outbrain and Teads, seeking to dominate global narratives while silencing reports from Gaza. Critics argue that such corporate partnerships show Big Tech’s willingness to profit from genocide under the guise of “information campaigns.”
Meanwhile, Gaza’s health ministry reports the war has killed at least 63,746 Palestinians and injured 161,245 others since October 2023. More than 43,000 children under the age of five and 55,000 pregnant or nursing women now suffer from acute malnutrition, underscoring the depths of the humanitarian catastrophe that Israel and its Western backers continue to deny.
According to Mehr News, the secretive contract between Google and Netanyahu’s office was framed explicitly as hasbara, propaganda designed to counter global outrage at the blockade. Documents reviewed by the outlet reveal the six-month, $45 million plan was launched immediately after aid supplies were cut off in March, with the intent of drowning out international coverage of Gaza’s famine. Israel deliberately shifted resources away from humanitarian relief toward digital advertising, exposing the cynical nature of the campaign.
TRT Global confirmed that the campaign used YouTube and Google’s Display & Video 360 to spread official state messaging. It also reported the scale of Israel’s wider ad spending, millions directed at X and other platforms, reinforcing the perception of a coordinated propaganda effort. These actions came as famine deaths escalated in Gaza, making Google’s role appear not only morally indefensible but directly complicit in obscuring war crimes.
