On the first day of Eid al-Adha, YouTube users were met with a disturbing sight: a paid Israeli advertisement justifying its ongoing military campaign in Gaza, marking 600 days since the beginning of what international legal bodies have described as a potential genocide.

The advert, produced by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and promoted across Google-owned platforms, claims that “for more than 600 days, Hamas has waged its war,” alleging the continued captivity of 58 hostages. The video, which initially appeared on official Israeli channels, has re-emerged as a sponsored ad seen globally, raising serious questions about tech platforms’ role in spreading state-backed narratives during wartime.

Nowhere in the advertisement is there mention of the more than 54,000 Palestinians killed since October 2023, most of them women, children, and the elderly. International human rights organisations and multiple UN officials have accused Israel of committing war crimes and potentially genocide. In January, the International Court of Justice issued provisional measures in South Africa’s case against Israel under the Genocide Convention, reflecting the gravity of the allegations.

Observers warn that paid political ads like these do more than mislead, they normalise mass atrocities and shift blame onto the victims. Last year, Israel ran a similar disinformation campaign targeting UNRWA, prompting the UN to condemn the effort as “destructive.”

Legal frameworks in both the United Kingdom and the European Union prohibit misleading political content and impose strict regulations on paid advertisements. Yet YouTube continues to host and profit from videos that critics say function as propaganda, aiding the whitewashing of crimes committed in Gaza.

As the war on Gaza intensifies and the death toll rises, the international community faces a sobering dilemma: will it continue to allow digital platforms to amplify the voices of impunity, or will it uphold the principles of truth and accountability?