'Digital Warrior': How a lone soldier shaped Israel's global narrative after October 7

She began with videos – short edits about Israel, made as a student at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, which she posted online without much expectations. The videos gained attention – enough that she started to see a path forming, even if she didn’t know where it would lead.

The decisions that followed were less about career than about regret.

At a Christians United for Israel conference during her senior year, she met a man who said he regretted not having served in the IDF. Lester left with a question she couldn’t shake: What would she regret not doing?

“I don’t want to regret not serving in the IDF while I can,” she said.

She moved to Israel after graduating in 2017, planning to stay for only two years. Nearly a decade later, she’s still here.

The book she has now written came even later.

Lester grew up in a Zionist household in Los Angeles, attending Jewish schools and building an early connection to Israel. While studying as an undergrad in cognitive science, she minored in video editing.

The role was outward-facing: not speaking to Israelis but to the world.

“The Israeli team is preaching to the choir,” she said. “We are actually tasked with shaping global opinion.”

It was work that combined instinct and strategy, understanding not just what was happening but also how it was being perceived.

“This is what people were saying online. This is what we have to respond to,” she said.

The job demanded constant attention. Social media feeds became both source material and battleground. Narratives formed quickly, often before facts were fully established.

“It’s such an uphill battle,” she said.

She stayed for six months.

The pace was relentless – 12-hour shifts, no weekends – focused on what she described as “fighting the digital war.” The task was to explain events as they unfolded, often in the face of incomplete or contested information.

At the same time, she began documenting her experience – daily updates sent to a WhatsApp group of about 60 people.

“I was able to… compile all of my messages into a book,” she said. The idea for a book was first sparked by comments from multiple people during a speaking engagement in Los Angeles in 2024.

After the hospital in Gaza City was hit by a rocket, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported that more than 500 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike. International news outlets immediately reported this figure and ran the story before a formal investigation took place.

It was later confirmed by Israeli intelligence, including video footage, that the blast came from a misfired rocket launched inside Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The most difficult part of Lester’s work – and of the book – is what never appears publicly.

During the early days of the Gaza war, she was responsible for monitoring Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad channels, reviewing raw footage, and deciding what could be shared.

“I sat on Hamas’s telegram… and categorized and organized everything,” she said.

The role required a level of exposure few people experience. At first, she approached it as a technical task.

“I thought… I’m just going to protect the other soldiers from seeing this, but I’ll be fine,” she said. She wasn’t. “[Viewing the footage] was definitely very traumatizing.”

Still, decisions had to be made.

Early in the war, she pushed the IDF to publish compilation videos of the Hamas attacks, arguing that the world needed to see what had happened. One video reached close to 10 million views.

“I felt like I did my job of showing the world what was going on,” she said.

Later, commanders restricted the use of graphic footage, citing the impact on Israeli audiences. Content was blurred or withheld. Lester said she disagreed with the shift but followed orders.

The tension between documenting reality and managing its consequences runs through both her work and her writing.

For Lester, the war online is not secondary to the one on the ground. It shapes how events are understood, and, in turn, how they unfold politically.

“Every day is a constant battle of just what false narrative is out there today and how can we prove them wrong,” she said.

Part of that battle, she contends, is artificial.

“The vast majority are bots,” she said of hostile responses online. The volume creates a distorted sense of consensus.

“It gives this impression that the whole world hates Israel,” she added, “and… that’s not true.”

Her approach is practical: identify what is real, engage where it matters, and maintain visibility.

“Presence matters,” she stated.

That idea forms the closing argument of Digital Warrior, that understanding the system is only the first step. Participation is the second.

Today, Lester works in influencer marketing as a creative strategist, managing campaigns and producing content for brands. The work is steady and structured, far removed from the pace of wartime communication.

Still, the shift feels temporary.

The book has become a continuation of the same work, translated into a different format. She is now beginning to self-publish, driven in part by a sense of urgency around the subject matter.

“I’m kind of feeling like I need to publish soon or it’s going to be irrelevant,” she said.

Her goal is to build on it – to speak, teach, and explain how the system works.

“I want to establish myself as an expert on social media warfare,” she said.

For Lester, the book is not a conclusion. It is a record of six months in reserves, of decisions made in real time, and of a war fought not only with weapons but with images, language, and speed.

And of the person behind those decisions – someone who started by editing videos in Los Angeles and ended up deciding what millions of people would see.■