Iran targeting ex-hostages, Nova survivors via cyber harassment

Former hostages Noa Argamani and Romi Gonen are among the campaign’s highest-profile reported targets.

By World Israel News Staff

Iranian cyberwarfare networks are orchestrating coordinated online harassment campaigns targeting former Israeli hostages and survivors of the October 7, 2023, Nova Music Festival massacre, according to a new report by the watchdog group Fighting Online Antisemitism (FOA).

The nonprofit, which monitors antisemitic activity across major social media platforms, described the effort as a “sustained and multi-layered digital campaign” in which Iranian-linked accounts circulate conspiracy theories questioning whether the Hamas atrocities actually occurred while simultaneously directing violent, sexually explicit, and abusive messages at survivors.

The organization said many of the posts and messages appear to violate the content policies of major social media platforms, including rules prohibiting harassment, incitement, and threats of violence.

Nevertheless, FOA argued that much of the content remains online for extended periods without meaningful enforcement.

According to the report, survivors of the Hamas attacks “are being harmed twice” — first by the massacre itself and now by relentless online abuse aimed at discrediting their experiences.

TikTok, the report noted, is “saturated with harassment of survivors, antisemitic memes and videos that exploit popular trends to spread hateful messages or mock civilian suffering.”

The report also found that many of the coordinated accounts promote conspiracy theories portraying the October 7 massacre as a “false flag” operation— falsely claiming the attacks were staged or fabricated for political purposes rather than carried out by Hamas terrorists.

Speaking to UK outlet The Telegraph, Nova Festival survivor Omri Sassi described the emotional toll of repeatedly confronting conspiracy theories denying the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history.

“I cannot control these people,” Sassi said, referring to the online harassers. “They can write whatever they want. I know the truth. I organized the festival. I lost family members there. I invite anyone who thinks what happened is not real, or that Israel staged this festival to start a war, to come and see how wrong they are.”