Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesman reveals group’s Gaza propaganda playbook

JERUSALEM — A spokesman for Gaza’s second-largest terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), shared inside information on the organization’s propaganda tactics and its cynical manipulation of the media during an interrogation with Israel’s military intelligence agency following his arrest at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City last month.

An eight-minute video of the interrogation of Tariq Salami Otha Abu Shlouf, a spokesperson for PIJ’s political bureau, was published by the Israeli army on Monday. In the clip, Shlouf can be heard detailing how the U.S.-designated terror group uses both Arabic and international media to create a false narrative about what is happening in the Gaza Strip.

He also spoke about how terrorists have widely used all of Gaza’s hospitals and many of its ambulances while battling Israeli forces during the six-month war.

In one admission, the spokesman said an explosion in one of Gaza's main hospitals early on in the fighting was caused by a misfired PIJ rocket, not by Israel, as many international outlets rushed to report.

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Shlouf said the PIJ’s leadership "fabricated the story about an Israeli strike on the hospital" in an attempt to "erase" the group’s direct involvement in the incident, which killed more than 100 people, according to U.S. intelligence agencies.

"It is true that the story is false, but we wanted to promote it," the spokesman said, describing how the terror group’s communication department made decisions based on "certain interests" and "to leverage a certain narrative."

"We relied on the stories in the international press," Shlouf told the interrogators.

"Most international media will undoubtedly