\u201cIf I have to choose between victory over our enemies and bad propaganda against us, I choose victory over our enemies rather than the opposite,\u201d he said. \u201cI do not want articles saying that we were defeated by our enemies but received good obituaries in the world press. I choose victory.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t Then-public diplomacy minister Galit Distel Atbaryan speaks at the Knesset, in Jerusalem, on August 16, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n Netanyahu\u2019s comments came days after US President Donald Trump said in an interview that Israel \u201cmay be winning the [Gaza] war, but they\u2019re not winning the world of public relations.\u201d<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s public diplomacy apparatus has faced difficulties since the very beginning of the war, when then-public diplomacy minister Galit Distel Atbaryan quit her job five days after Hamas\u2019s October 7, 2023, massacre, which saw thousands of terrorists burst across the border, kill some 1,200 people and seize 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has since killed more than 64,000 people, according to the Strip\u2019s Hamas-run health ministry. The figure, which cannot be independently verified, does not distinguish between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.<\/p>\n \t Demonstrators take part in a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rally against the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip during a protest in Sydney\u2019s central business district on August 24, 2025. (Saeed KHAN \/ AFP)<\/p>\n Many countries, including allies of Israel, have grown increasingly critical of the offensive in Gaza as the death toll there has swelled and the humanitarian crisis in the Strip has intensified, with a UN hunger monitor last week declaring famine in parts of the Strip. A number of countries and human rights organizations have accused Israel of genocide, and mass anti-Israel protests have taken place worldwide.<\/p>\n Israel has denied that there is famine in Gaza and has accused Hamas of looting deliveries of humanitarian aid to the Strip. It has likewise adamantly rejected the charge of genocide and blamed Hamas for civilian deaths in Gaza, saying the terror group uses noncombatants as human shields and embeds itself in civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and schools.<\/p>\n Former and current officials in the Prime Minister\u2019s Office, the Foreign Ministry, and the IDF\u2019s Spokesperson\u2019s Unit acknowledged to The Times of Israel last month<\/a> that the breakdown in Israel\u2019s image results not only from hostile actors, a complex war zone, and government policy, but also from internal dysfunction within the public diplomacy apparatus.<\/p>\n Current officials, including spokespeople, all declined to speak on the record about the issue, a standard practice reflecting the state of media engagement from the Israeli government.<\/p>\n Nava Freiberg contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
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