On July 16, Palestinian activists launched a global digital advocacy campaign centered on the hashtag “They Lied to You” that has quickly spread across major social platforms, aiming to reorient global public attention toward the unrelenting Israeli military campaign in Gaza and push back against the widespread narrative that the October nominal ceasefire accord brought attacks on the besieged enclave to an end.
Organically sparked from within Gaza, the campaign has gained viral traction on both X and Instagram, with parallel hashtags in English (#TheyLiedToYou) and Arabic (#كذبوا_عليكم) uniting activists and ordinary users globally. Palestinians on the ground have been sharing unfiltered, live footage documenting ongoing Israeli bombardments, widespread systematic food deprivation, and the spread of preventable diseases to demonstrate that the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza has only worsened even as international media coverage has faded.
In an Instagram video that has been shared tens of thousands of times, Gaza-based journalist Hani Aburezeq spelled out the core grievance driving the campaign: “They tricked you that the war is over… war didn’t end, it only ended on your screens. In reality, the people of Gaza are being killed, displaced, their homes are being destroyed.”
Across social media, users have shared harrowing personal accounts and on-the-ground footage that challenges the official ceasefire narrative. Responding to a post about a Palestinian child in Gaza who lost his entire family to an Israeli strike, one X user wrote: “They lied to you.. Gaza is being slaughtered in silence before the eyes of the world, which also watches in silence. Gaza is not outside the tragedy but outside the coverage, deliberately marginalised by the media.”
Even young residents of Gaza have joined the campaign, sharing their own firsthand experiences of unbroken violence. “They lied to you. There are massacres happening…there are strikes everyday,” one child said in a widely shared video clip posted online.
Official figures from Gaza’s government media office, released Sunday, back up the claims of ongoing attacks. The office confirmed that Israel has carried out more than 3,700 violations of the nominal ceasefire agreement since the deal took effect in October, with at least 1,168 Palestinians killed in Gaza in that period alone.
Many campaign participants have also pointed to the month-long FIFA World Cup as a deliberate distraction that allowed global attention to shift away from the crisis in Gaza. “They created for you a spectacle to divert your attention away from the tragedy,” one X user wrote in a post accompanying footage of fresh bombardment in the enclave.
As the campaign gained momentum this week, new Israeli attacks continued to claim civilian lives. Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local sources, reported that at least two Palestinians were killed and 16 others, most of them children, were wounded in an Israeli strike targeting al-Yaman al-Saeed hospital in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Monday. A separate strike targeting an electric bike in the central Gaza Strip’s al-Zawaida area killed one additional Palestinian, medical sources confirmed.
Updated cumulative figures released by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on Tuesday put the total Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks across the enclave since October 7, 2023 at 73,293, with another 173,960 people wounded. Thousands more Palestinians remain unaccounted for and are presumed dead beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings across Gaza.