Israel said the expanding Hamas media empire is part of the Islamists’ “terrorist operations,” although it stopped short of branding everyone working for it as a potential target in its offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers. Al-Aqsa TV, which employed the two journalists , said they were killed on the job, and it accused Israel of trying to silence those documenting the suffering of Gaza’s civilians.

“The bottom line is that Hamas is more relevant,” said Yoram Meital of Ben-Gurion University’s Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy. “Israel’s image is as the side that refused to pay the price for peace, and most Palestinians see Hamas’s ‘resistance’ as more attractive and up to date, and the Palestinian authority as somewhat not relevant.”

The Israeli government is trying to pre-empt a publicity pounding over its Gaza offensive by aggressively pushing out its version of events, furiously tweeting and Facebook posting updates from a "media bunker." The instant they heard about a bus bombing in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, scores of tech-savvy youth in Israel's government media command center in Jerusalem sprang into action.

About 500 foreign journalists arrived in Israel over the weekend to cover Operation Pillar of Defense, the Government Press Office reported on Monday. The GPO said the new arrivals are joining some 1,400 members of the media in the region to cover Israel and the Middle East.

The primary short-term goal set for Operation Pillar of Defense is to hit Gaza-based terrorism hard. In order to get the most out of this military operation, Israel needs to try to make sure the damage it causes will weaken the Hamas military wing for the long term.

Both sides have taken the fight to the virtual streets during Operation Pillar of Defense, battling for public sympathy through Facebook posts and fiery tweets. Meanwhile, Israelis flock to web-based news, and government sites become targets for cyber warfare.

The Gaza conflict is being fought online, as well. Twitter is the main new front in a propaganda war between Israel and Hamas, but experts say the use of social media for public diplomacy is a double-edged sword. Social media can help convey a message to the public, but Twitter can be used carelessly, with a danger of overplaying things

It was inevitable as governments and the militants fighting governments became more adept at social media that they’d end up using Twitter and YouTube against each other. The problem is that in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the very real war can come across as farcical on Twitter, as the two sides go at each other.