[1]Twitter is coming of age – and got a little more serious last week. That was when bosses at Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) declared war on Hamas, and they chose the micro-blogging social network to do so instead of the usual means of press conferences, or television and radio announcements.
Shortly after they launched a series of air-strikes against the Palestinian group Hamas, IDF tweeted and called the attack ‘Operation Pillar of Defense’ aimed at the terrorists responsible for the many rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.
"The IDF has begun a widespread campaign on terror sites and operatives in the #Gaza Strip, chief among them #Hamas & Islamic Jihad targets," the IDF tweeted. "All options are on the table," they tweeted further. "If necessary, the IDF is ready to initiate a ground operation in Gaza."
The IDF also used Twitter to post a video of a targeted assassination of Hamas' military head Ahmed al-Jabari by missile strike, which was confirmed to be genuine by Hamas. Online reports are coming in of explosions near the home of Hamas leader Mahmood al-Zahar.
Twitter is now replete with reports of more air strikes and casualties, and IDF has tweeted that the Israeli navy has joined in the action. Meanwhile, Hamas spokesman Abu Zuhri preferred to do it the traditional way, and said a statement released via BBC that "Israel will regret the moment they even thought of doing this."
While this may be the first time that a state has formally taken to Twitter to announce military action, it's not the first time the social-media site has been an early warning system. Pakistani blogger Sohaib Athar who accidentally beamed the news about the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s den by American forces was another prominent example.
Well, what next? Let’s follow Ayatollah Khomeini’s Instagram account.
Who knows he could issue a sepia-tinted fatwa statement right there!
Links:
[1] http://103.241.136.51/t16jpg-120