As an IDF spokesperson at the center of a tense negotiation during the 2002 siege at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity – when Palestinian terrorists took refuge in one of Christianity’s holiest sites – I’ve seen firsthand the painful complexity of war when religion, civilians, and global perception collide.
Now, more than two decades later, I am disheartened to witness history repeat itself, this time in Gaza, where a church has again become part of a deadly theater.
Reports that the Israel Defense Forces mistakenly targeted the Holy Family Church in Gaza sparked outrage. A sacred site was damaged and lives were lost. Global headlines ran with the familiar narrative: Israel fires on a church. And yet, missing from many of those stories was the other uncomfortable truth: Hamas, as it has done for years, was using that location for cover.
Israel is losing in the headlines
The IDF faces an enemy that thrives on martyrdom and headlines. Hamas embeds its fighters and weapons inside schools, hospitals, and yes, churches – not simply as military strategy, but as media strategy.
Civilian deaths become global ammunition. In this asymmetric war, Hamas doesn’t just hide behind women and children, whom they use as human shields. It builds its battlefield in places designed to provoke maximum moral and political backlash.
Israel cannot afford to ignore this dimension of the conflict any longer. Military operations may succeed on the ground, but if Israel continues to fail in the information war, every battlefield win will be eclipsed by a massive PR loss.
The Israeli government must urgently recognize what Hamas, Iran, and Qatar have already mastered: global narrative is a front line.
Israel goes for battlefield wins that are PR losses
Today, there is not a single senior IDF officer with seasoned crisis communications or international PR agency experience embedded in real-time operations. While there are highly capable professionals in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, they are outmatched by a propaganda machine that is larger, faster, emotionally charged, and unburdened by facts.
After the atrocities of October 7, when Hamas massacred over 1,200 civilians and abducted hundreds, the world briefly remembered what Israel is up against. But as images of damaged churches and chaotic aid distributions take center stage, global memory is short – and sympathy even shorter.
The result? A resurgence of anti-Israel sentiment, and with it, a spike in antisemitism from London and Paris to Los Angeles and Toronto.
Let’s be clear: mistakes in war are tragic. They deserve investigation, accountability, and transparency. But mistakes in messaging are equally deadly in a conflict where international legitimacy is under constant siege.
If Israel fails to explain in real time why and how these tragic events occur; if it fails to document Hamas’s exploitation of sacred and civilian spaces, it will continue to lose support abroad. And when Israel loses support, Jews around the world face the consequences.
The time to act was yesterday. The IDF must integrate experienced crisis communications professionals; people who understand not just how to manage a news cycle, but how to shape it. Israel must respond to tragedy not just with remorse, but with facts, context, and strategic clarity. They need to respond not just from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem but with staff in London and New York who know wire service editors.
I say this not as an international communications strategist but as someone who once helped prevent bloodshed in a church with one, on-site news conference. I know the cost of hesitation and the cost of silence.
The writer is president of Leyden Communications Israel, a crisis communications, public affairs, and digital PR organization confronting antisemitism, with offices in New York and Ra’anana. He has served as an officer in the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, and as a senior media and cross-cultural communications consultant to the Foreign Ministry.