"Google’s $45 Million Contract With Netanyahu's Office to Spread Israeli Propaganda", 3 September 2025

On March 2, 2025, hours after the Israeli government announced the blockade of all food, medicine, fuel, and other humanitarian supplies from entering Gaza, lawmakers in Jerusalem demanded answers—not on the devastating human toll of such a decision, but on how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office was preparing to handle the public relations fallout...

Government contracts show...a mass advertising and public messaging effort to conceal the hunger crisis. The push includes the use of American influencers [and] a high-dollar spending spree on paid advertising, yielding tens of millions for Google, YouTube, X, Meta, and other tech platforms. “There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie,” asserted a propaganda video published by Israel’s foreign ministry on YouTube. Records show $3 million for an advertising campaign with X and $2.1 million for Outbrain/Teads.

The UN formally declared a famine in Gaza governorate..."this Famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed.”...

At least 367 Palestinians, including 131 children, have died as a result of hunger and malnutrition since the war began, according to the health ministry in Gaza...

Despite the denial about the famine, prominent Israeli government voices have championed the effort to cut off food and water to Gazans as a strategy for inducing mass migration out of the territory. “No water, no electricity, they can die of hunger or surrender,” [ Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minsiter] said...

An editorial published in early August by the Arab fact-checking organization Misbar reported that information disclosed in Google and Meta’s ad transparency portals amounted to a “large-scale Israeli propaganda campaign” operating during Operation Rising Lion. Misbar characterized the Israeli government’s ad campaigns as having “used disinformation to justify the strikes, presenting them as essential for the security of Israel and Western countries.”...

Google, Outbrain/Teads, and the Israeli Government Advertising Agency did not respond to requests for comment.