Inside the US Telegram group chats Hamas is trying to radicalize

New York Post

a day ago

Telegram group chats with hundreds of thousands of subscribers are posting daily propaganda directly from Hamas — and potentially radicalizing anti-Israel activists here in America.
The Post monitored two major English-language Telegram networks — Resistance News Network and Gaza Now In English, with more than 100,000 and 200,000 subscribers respectively — over the past week and observed dozens of daily updates purporting to be from spokespeople for Hamas, Hezbollah and terrorist military brigades.
10 The Post identified announcements from Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas' military wing, Al-Qassam Brigades, in several large Telegram groups.
Telegram
10 Updates from the Mujahideen Brigades, an armed wing of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, were posted to the Resistance News Network roup chat on Telegram.
Telegram
Resistance News Network, which describes itself as 'the pulse of the resistance,' posted two dozen briefs from Gaza, translated into English, on June 4. The group has more than 165,000 subscribers.
Updates called deceased Palestinians 'martyrs' and frequently referenced the 'fascist zionist enemy,' and consistently put 'Israel' in quotation marks in an apparent effort to delegitimize Israeli statehood.
On June 5, a posted statement from the Yemeni Armed Forces announced a drone attack on the Ben Gurion Airport, which was confirmed by multiple media outlets.
Several updates 'from the front lines' also arrived from the Al-Quds brigades, the paramilitary armed wing of the Islamist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
10 Tarek Bazrouk was allegedly a member of a chat group that received updates from a Hamas spokesperson.
DCPI
'Our fighters confirmed that they managed to detonate a zionist military vehicle with a highly explosive barrel device,' read a June 5 message from the Al-Quds brigades, who reported they were returning from the front lines south of Khan Younis.
While subscribers do not have permission to send messages in the channel, they are able to react with emoji. Messages reporting Israeli casualties are littered with hundreds of celebratory reactions, including flames, hearts, clapping hands, and various other symbols of approval.
Military updates also poured in from the Islamic Jihad Movement, the Martyr Izz El-Din Al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing of Hamas), the Mujahideen Brigades (an armed wing of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement), and the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades (the armed wing of the Marxist–Leninist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
10 Users have reacted with celebratory emoji to messages on Resistance News Network's Telegram group chat reporting attacks against Israeli targets.
Telegram
Daily statistical reports from the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza and images of injured children and civilians flooded the channel too.
The Post identified 206 messages reportedly from Hamas spokesperson Abu Obeida in Resistance News Network's thread from January 2024 to present. The most recent was sent on May 23.
Tarek Bazrouk, an agitator who protested at Columbia University and now faces three federal hate crime charges, allegedly was 'a member of a chat group that received regular updates from Abu Obeida,' the official spokesperson for Hamas's al-Qassam Brigades militant group, according to allegations in federal documents.
It's not confirmed whether Bazrouk, who reportedly boasted about having family members affiliated with Hamas, was in either of the group chats identified by The Post, however they both appear very similar in spirit to the chat described in the federal documents.
10 Both Resistance News Network and Gaza Now In English's group chats on Telegram have posted statements from Abu Obeida, a spokesperson for Hamas.
Telegram
'Telegram channels are one of the go-tos for terrorist organizations to provide their propaganda to Americans and people around the globe,' Oren Segal, Senior Vice President for Counter-Extremism at the Anti Defamation League, told The Post. 'They want people to see it. They want to put as much hate out there as possible.'
The Resistance News Network group chat first appeared on Telegram in 2022, according to the Anti Defamation League, and soon began engaging in 'explicit promotion of US State Department-designated foreign terrorist organizations, often providing translations of communiques and propaganda.'
Multiple experts said it is all but impossible to identify the founders or moderators of Resistance News Network.
The ADL reports that materials from the Resistance News Network have reached American students. Posters and material were posted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Washington and to bulletin boards at the Aurora Campus in Denver.
10 An announcement from the Yemeni army was posted in Arabic on Resistance News Network's Telegram group chat.
Telegram
10 Some updates on Resistance News Network's Telegram group chat have included video footage from various military operations by the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades.
Telegram
SJP chapters at Wellesley College, University of Washington, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of California-Irvine, John Jay College and Brandeis University have all also shared Resistance News Network content on their social media channels.
Lara Burns, Head of Terrorism Research at George Washington University's Center for Extremism, told The Post that college students are prime targets because they are sympathetic to oppressor-versus-oppressed narratives.
'[Hamas propagandists] are purposely targeting groups by using terms that they think would appeal to them, and their favorite term is 'oppression,'' Burns said. 'They claim that 'the Palestinian people are oppressed, and you are oppressed, so let's be oppressed together. But hey, let's work on our cause first, right?''
10 Gaza Now In English's Telegram group chat regularly feature graphic photos and videos of individuals allegedly injured in conflict in Gaza.
Telegram
Another even more popular channel, topping 200,000 members, is Gaza Now In English. The channel is affiliated with the Gaza Now News Network, founded in 2006 by Mustafa Ayyash out of Gaza. Ayyash, a Palestinian Muslim journalist, was sanctioned by the US and Britain in 2024 for allegedly providing financial assistance to Hamas.
In November 2023, Gaza Now-affiliated Telegram channels became briefly unavailable on the mobile app (the platform has not said why), but they are presently available on both the mobile and the desktop version of Telegram.
Though Gaza Now In English seems to have less frequent military updates, The Post identified announcements from Abu Obeida, Hamas, Saraya al-Quds and the Al-Qassam Brigades.
10 Posts to Gaza Now In English's Telegram group chat regularly get around 20,000 to 40,000 views.
Telegram
The group also frequently shares graphic images and videos of injured people and sends out names of the deceased, referred to as 'martyrs.'
'Yemen answers the call,' a message in the channel read after the Thursday airport attack, followed by a statement from Hamas: 'We salute our honest brothers in #Yemen who continue to launch rockets despite what they are exposed to.'
Most messages on the channel have 20,000 to 40,000 views.
10 Telegram group chats with hundreds of thousands of subscribers are posting daily propaganda directly from Hamas — and potentially radicalizing anti-Israel activists here in America.
AFP via Getty Images
The Post has reached out to Telegram for comment.
Jonathan Schanzer, the executive director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, warned these channels can be a pipeline for radicalization, even here in the United States.
'They are filled with sophisticated propaganda,' he told The Post. 'And they are dangerous because they really do invite the viewers, even if you're kind of casually lurking, to go down a rabbit hole of Hamas propaganda.'
'It's very granular stuff. They're giving lurkers the sense that they are part of the battle landscape.'
Lorenzo Vidino, director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, confirmed that Hamas and Hezbollah's 'app of choice is Telegram,' a free encrypted-messaging platform available on the App Store and Google Play.
'Hamas and Hezbollah have networks of random supporters who don't really have physical or direct contact with people inside the organization,' Vidino explained, 'but they also have very extensive digital networks inside the United States of people who have family connections to them.'