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Google is in the middle of a six-month, $45 million contract to amplify propaganda with Netanyahu’s office, Drop Site News reported Wednesday.
Israel’s government advertising agency Lapam is responsible for managing the arrangement and reports directly to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
The contract describes Google as a “key entity” supporting the prime minister’s messaging.
The contract that was signed in late June aims to fund advertising campaigns across the company’s platforms that promote the occupier’s narrative of the war and deny the existence of famine in the Gaza Strip.
According to the report, the ads are managed through YouTube and Google’s Display & Video 360 platform .
The platforms are characterized in government documents as “hasbara”—a Hebrew term often translated as “propaganda.”
Records show that Israel also spent $3 million on ads with the U.S. social media company X and $2.1 million with the French-Israeli platform Outbrain/Teads.
The campaigns funded under this contract include advertisements and video clips explicitly asserting that “there is food in Gaza.”
Last month, the United Nations and international experts officially declared the outbreak of widespread famine in the Gaza Strip.
Despite this, Google continued to run Israeli state advertisements denying the existence of hunger.
The campaign extends to other objectives, such as casting doubt on the credibility of the Hind Rajab Foundation and promoting “debunked claims” against Hamas.
Other ads published under the contract targeted international institutions and NGOs.
Several sought to delegitimize the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, accusing the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency of “deliberate sabotage” in aid delivery.
In June, U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese directly accused Google of profiting from the Gaza genocide.
According to internal leaks, Google co-founder Sergey Brin responded on an employee forum by calling the U.N. “a transparently antisemitic organization.”
Following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, reports have detailed the Israeli military’s use of digital technologies in its Gaza operations.
Another investigation by the Guardian revealed that the Israeli military undertook a project to store a giant trove of Palestinians’ phone calls on Microsoft’s servers in Europe
This project enables Unit 8200 to store a giant trove of calls daily for extended periods of time.
According to three Unit 8200 sources, the cloud-based storage platform has facilitated the preparation of deadly airstrikes and has shaped military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
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