Many things are lived in Gaza but do not find their way into the general narrative. The media, no matter how much it claims to cover, only conveys major crimes, while the details that slowly destroy people and spoil their daily lives often remain outside the frame. Those living inside the Strip know there are truths only seen from within, and the inability to convey them leaves a harsh sense of exile within the country itself.
Among these truths is the story of “The Captain.” This is not meant as a passing title or a mysterious character appearing at the edge of the scene, but rather the name used by Israeli intelligence officers when communicating with Palestinians, especially in moments of war, pressure, and the collapse of certainty. “The Captain” may arrive in the form of a text message, a WhatsApp call, or a social media page, using language that combines threat and enticement, artificial closeness, and the exercise of control. He may begin with a Quranic verse, a sentence about peace, or a message that seems concerned with the “interest” of the recipient and their family, before quickly moving to what he actually wants: opening a channel.
I am not trying here to write about intelligence as an institution or politics as an abstract file. Instead, in this article, I write about society when pushed to the edge of fragility, and about individual stories born under bombardment, in the cold, or under a tent roof. These stories cannot bear to be reduced to general words like “steadfastness,” nor to be melted into a single word like “the people,” as if thousands of individuals could be contained in one narrative. From here, I will try to understand how these messages work, why some people believe them, and what they do to the social fabric. For the story, when told from the mouths of its owners, reveals what lenses, reports, and major speeches fail to see.
However, this article does not deal with “The Captain” as just a name, nor sexuality as its only subject. What I am trying to track here is “The Captain” as a tool of psychological operations (PsyOps) practiced by Israeli intelligence against Palestinians, especially in Gaza. These communications test fragility, measure susceptibility, and open channels that may later be used for entrapment, blackmail, recruitment, or spreading chaos within society. Through testimonies from Gaza, including testimonies from Palestinian queers, this article attempts to understand how this process works, why some people respond to these messages at all, and what the consequences are for the individual and the social fabric in a time of war.
Who is “The Captain”?
“The Captain” is the name by which Israeli intelligence officers present themselves—not Palestinians from the occupied territories—in their communication with Palestinians. It is used because it is “lighter on the ear” than the title of “intelligence officer,” and perhaps also as a way to normalize this communication, making it seem less intense and less direct than it truly is. The word, with its apparent lightness and ambiguity, helps present the relationship as a personal, administrative, or even “humanitarian” communication, rather than a harsh security contact from an occupying power.
This mask is not new. In the memory of many people in Gaza, “The Captain” dates back to the years of direct Israeli military rule before the Oslo Accords, when officers would appear periodically by this name and be called by it among the people. Specific names remain in oral history, such as “Captain Abu Sabri,” who is mentioned as one of the most famous figures known by this title in Gaza City and its west. What changed later was not the mask, but the medium. After his presence was direct and in the field, he returned in newer forms via mobile phones, WhatsApp messages, personal pages, and digital accounts.
SMS message from “Captain Abu Yehia” addressed to the general population. The text warns that the ceasefire offers no protection for what he refers to as “Hamas activists” and calls on residents to take proactive measures against those opposing Israeli security interests.
This usage became more prominent in the West Bank after the 2015 Jerusalem uprising. Starting in 2016, pages managed by Shin Bet officers appeared, presenting themselves to Palestinians as “The Captain,” using familiar Arabic names like “Abu So-and-so,” and addressing people in language mixing artificial closeness with threats, and the illusion of help with the exercise of control. In this shift, the essence of the relationship did not change, but its interface did: from an officer physically present in a location to an account sending a message, and from a direct military presence to a personal contact that appears lighter on the surface but may be more capable of infiltrating private life.
The importance of “The Captain” lies in his function, not his name. He comes initially as a transmitter of a message, then as an entry point into an inherently unequal relationship: one side possessing power, information, and tools of punishment, and another side living under bombardment, siege, and uncertainty, trying only to understand what is happening around them or to protect those they can. In this imbalance, the psychological operation begins. The Captain only needs to open a small door to push the recipient to respond, because the response itself changes the nature of the relationship: from a message recipient to someone who has entered—even for seconds—a communication channel with Israeli intelligence.
Therefore, “The Captain” is a pseudonym used as part of a broader engineering of fear and need. He is the mask that makes intelligence less visible and more capable of infiltrating daily life. He is the interface for intimidating messages, implicit promises, and “introductory” questions that seem simple on the surface but are actually a preliminary sort: Who might be afraid? Who might be compliant? Who might be lured later? And who might enter—without knowing—a security database usable at any time?
How “The Captain” Works
“The Captain” operates as part of a psychological operation that begins before the first question is even asked. The Palestinian who receives the message does not read it in a vacuum, but within an environment of war, uncertainty, and exhaustion, where it is no longer clear if what is monitoring them is only monitoring or preparing for harm. This ambiguity makes the message effective; when people live under constant pressure and fear becomes unpredictable or unavoidable, the message becomes an extension of a broader environment of control and the management of terror.
A recruitment message from “Captain Abu Haitham” specifically targeting the residents of the Al-Shati refugee camp. The text utilizes classic psychological operation tactics: exploitation of hunger and basic needs, the framing of security cooperation as “repentance” (توبة), and the promise of a “luxurious future.” It also attempts to foster social division by naming local figures (Al-Hawajri) to blame for the current suffering.
This is also important because the psychological operation does not only start at the moment of the message or call, but within a wider context of constant surveillance. Living under drones produces a constant sense of threat and terror hanging over daily life, making the recipient psychologically exhausted and more susceptible to any subsequent message, hint, or threat.
The attempts to open these channels did not always start with text messages. Early in the war, other enticing forms appeared via flyers dropped from the sky, addressing Gazans in language attempting to create a false familiarity or hold a specific faction responsible for what was happening, such as: “Our Gazan neighbors… we lived side by side for many years without problems, and now the resistance has come to create problems…” Then these attempts moved to some phones as text messages. After the war resumed in March 2025, these messages became more widespread and regular, reaching nearly all civilian phones. This development reveals that the intent is to expand the channels for testing and pressure to the largest possible number of people.
Therefore, “The Captain’s” messages come in many forms. Some are explicitly intimidating: “We raise whom we raise and lower whom we lower.” Some come as advice, warnings, or implicit promises of protection: “Protect your loved ones and children and contact us as soon as possible.” Some begin with a Quranic verse or religious and moral language about “corrupters in the land,” in an attempt to borrow the vocabulary that reassures, confuses, or pushes the recipient to take the message seriously. In all these cases, the primary function is not to extract sensitive information immediately, but to open a channel.
This channel is the core of the operation. The first call with “The Captain” does not necessarily aim for immediate recruitment as much as it aims to measure susceptibility: Is this a person who can be frightened? Can they be compliant? Can they be pressured, lured, or used later? Thus, the officer usually begins with “introductory” or general questions: about the area, the family situation, and then moves to well-known names in the neighborhood, camp, or surroundings. These names may seem ordinary or known to everyone, but the answers are not ordinary in the eyes of the officer. Saying “Yes, I know him” may be read as an initial susceptibility to respond. Saying “I don’t know him” may be read as a deliberate lie and avoidance of cooperation. In both cases, the answer is raw material for classification.
In this sense, intelligence is not seeking information alone, but the person themselves: knowing how they answer, how they fear, how they hesitate, and what pushes them to stay on the line or hang up. When someone responds to a message, opens a chat door, or participates in a call for even a few seconds, they enter—from “The Captain’s” perspective—the category of a potential person to deal with later. Not every response is cooperation, and not every call is an “entrapment,” but every channel opened becomes a saved possibility, and every contact becomes—in one way or another—part of a human database usable later under fear, pressure, enticement, or intimidation.
What makes this process more dangerous is that it does not rely on an “enveloping” moral weakness in the recipient as much as it relies on a crushing circumstance. People after the resumption of war, in moments of collapse, displacement, and loss of certainty, do not always look for gain, but for an explanation: Is this place safe? Is staying possible? Should I flee now or stay with my family? Thus, some communications are not “pure error” as much as they are a human response to pressure that exceeds what can be measured. However, this same humanity is what enters into “The Captain’s” calculations: that the need to understand may turn into a door, the fear for the family may become an entry point, and the request for reassurance may turn into the beginning of an unequal relationship with Israeli intelligence.
From here, it can also be understood why the operation does not end at the message, nor even at the first call. The goal, in addition to gathering instantaneous information, is to test the ground: Who can be returned to? Who can be pressured later? Who can be frightened? Who can be enticed? And who can have their weakness, confusion, or need turned into security material for investment? In this sense, “The Captain” works within a full engineering of fear and need, not just as an individual crossing the phone.
Gaza after the resumption of war: Why do people respond at all?
The easy moral question here is: Why does anyone respond at all to a message of this type? But this question, in its abstract form, hides more than it reveals. It assumes that the person receiving the message stands outside the pressure, that they have enough distance for calm thinking, and that they are dealing with a clear choice between right and wrong. However, Gaza, after the resumption of war, was not a space that allowed this clarity at all. Bombing returned after a truce that many thought—even partially—might mean the end of the nightmare or at least its interruption for some time, only for people to find themselves once again in the heart of the same chaos: displacement, raids, fear, rumors, and lack of certainty about whether the house was safe, the neighborhood habitable, or tomorrow imaginable.
The significance of these messages increases when we place them in their timing. Some reached civilians’ phones exactly at midnight, at the moment the war resumed and the truce collapsed on March 18, 2025. The message did not arrive after the dust of the bombing disappeared, but in the heart of the shock, when fear was at its peak and people were less able to distinguish between an inquiry and a trap. A response is not always a calculated act as much as it becomes a desperate attempt to find meaning in the midst of chaos.
In this climate, responding to the message does not always seem to stem from an intention to collaborate; it is often an attempt to understand what cannot be understood from within the experience itself. Should they leave or stay? Is there something threatening the family? Does the other side know something the civilian trapped inside all this does not? The need to understand here is not curiosity, but part of the survival instinct. What makes the matter more complicated is that intelligence knows this well and bets on it: they do not bet on treason as a primary motive, but on confusion and the desire to explain what is happening, and on that kind of fear that makes a person ready to open a small door just to understand what is happening around them.
Therefore, it is not correct to read every response to these messages as a direct moral fall. Not all civilian contacts with “The Captain” are pure error; some are humanly understandable under the weight of pressure that is difficult to measure. The war, especially when resumed after a truce that seemed eternal, returns people to fear, and also returns them to that kind of uncertainty that makes the smallest signs carry huge potential: a message, a rumor, a call, a name, army movement, approaching bombing. In such an environment, a person is no longer free in the full sense in their response, but moves within a narrow margin imposed by the conditions of survival itself.
But understanding this does not mean exonerating the contact or underestimating its danger. Intelligence does not view the response as a human question or a moment of confusion, but as an indicator. Every response—even if short—enters “The Captain’s” calculations as a signal of a potential to be invested in later. From here comes the painful irony: what a civilian may see as a limited attempt to capture any understanding amidst the chaos, intelligence sees as the beginning of a channel, an initial test, or a nomination for a potential collaboration later.
Thus, the best that can be said here is not that those who respond are “guilty” or “innocent” in a simplified way, but that these messages succeed exactly because they enter the human being through their need, not their corruption, and through their fear for their family, not their pre-preparedness for collaboration. This is what makes it part of psychological operations, not just information gathering; it does not only search for what people know, but for what fear does to them.
Even so, closing these channels remains the safest option, because intelligence deals with the response—whatever it may be—as material for storage, analysis, and later return. Therefore, what seems to some civilians as a limited inquiry may turn, in the eyes of the party receiving the response, into a point of entry whose outcomes cannot be easily controlled.
When Sexuality is Used as a Tool in Psychological Operations
Sexuality is not used here as a separate subject from the psychological operation, but as one of its tools. “The Captain” does not always need a direct threat or a clear offer of cooperation to begin the pressure; it is sometimes enough to catch a tone of voice, test an image of masculinity, or throw a word charged with stigma within a small and fast-communicating society, to move the recipient from an inquiry to a state of fear. At this level, sexuality is not just a personal detail; it is the site of fragility that the officer can test, hint at, and reserve the possibility of using later.
In the testimony of H.M., a young man from Al-Shati camp, the story began with an explicitly intimidating message from “Captain Abu Haitham,” then later turned into a call during which H.M. wanted to understand if staying in his house with his family was possible or not. However, the call quickly slipped from a question about safety to questions about names and known people, then to another question that seemed personal and passing on the surface: “Why haven’t you married yet?” When H.M. answered that circumstances did not allow it, the response came in a sharp tone: “Your voice says you don’t want to get married.” H.M.’s voice—as he himself describes it—carried a softness or a relatively feminine touch, which the officer quickly caught and turned into an entry point for hint and pressure. This was not an innocent sentence or a passing observation. The officer at this moment was not asking about marriage; he was testing something else: How can the voice be read? How can it be loaded with gendered or sexual meaning? And how can this hint be turned into an early pressure door?
The weight of this hint doubles when we know that H.M. was actually gay, but he was not open about his sexuality except in very limited circles. Therefore, the phrase was closer to an attempt to probe a real site of fragility, or a potential door for blackmail and revealing what he is keen to keep away from the public. Thus, he ended the call quickly because he felt that the channel he opened to request understanding had turned within minutes into a channel in which his body, voice, and privacy could be read as pressure materials. Here specifically, sexuality intersects with psychological operations: the issue is not knowing the “truth” of the person as much as testing whether this hint alone is enough to push them toward fear, silence, defense, or staying within the call on terms set by the officer. That is, sexuality does not appear here as an independent subject, but as a potential entry point to rearrange the balance of power within the contact.
In another testimony, A.A., a young man from Khan Yunis, narrates that his short conversations with “Captain Abu Yahya” on WhatsApp dealt with general questions about people known for their resistance or military activity inside Gaza, before a call came that lasted about twenty-five minutes. During the call, the officer said directly: “Are you a faggot – لوطي?” A.A. first answered that he was only an activist for queer rights. But this answer was not a full expression of the truth as much as an initial response imposed by fear. A.A. is also gay, but despite his relative openness compared to H.M., he felt a degree of awe when hearing the question in its crude form that pushed him toward partial denial before regaining his composure and confronting the officer.
But what happened after that is more important. A.A. confronted the officer directly and informed him, in words close to his own, that he should use a term that consistent with the legal language the occupying state claims, not a word like “faggot.” Here Abu Yahya’s tone changed and he said: “Yes, yes,” then asked after seconds of silence: “What would you like me to say instead of the word faggot?” A.A. answered: “Gay” or “مثليّ” (mithli), and after less than a minute, the Captain moved to end the call. This is important because the confrontation here did not only fail the insult but revealed its mechanism. When the officer was forced to retract the word after A.A.’s objection, it became clear that the purpose was not accurate naming, but testing the psychological impact of the first word: Does it push the recipient to shrink? Does it put them in a defensive position? And does it make them busy justifying themselves instead of paying attention to the structure of the lure itself? In this sense, language works here as a tool of PsyOps: one word may be enough to disturb the balance within the call and transfer the center of power to the party that has the ability to stigmatize.
What this moment reveals is not just the crudeness of the word, but its method of operation. “Faggot” here is not an insult separate from the context, but a testing tool: Will the recipient retreat? Will they fear? Will they deny? Will they try to appease the officer? And can they be pushed, through one word, into a defensive position that reveals more than they want to reveal? When A.A. confronted the officer later and asked him to use another term, and the officer’s tone changed after that, it proved that this was not just a linguistic problem, but revealed that the word was intentional as a means of pressure that can be retracted only when it fails.
Here the question is no longer: Was the use of the word “faggot” insulting? But: Why did the officer choose this word in the first place? And why is it thrown so quickly within an intelligence call with a Palestinian civilian? The answer—in my estimation—is that the stigma itself is part of the function. The whole issue is creating a psychological imbalance within the call, and making the person feel that they have become exposed or exposable, and that the channel they opened can turn against them from their most fragile position.
All this is not understood outside the social context in which this language operates. Gaza is a smaller society where information travels quickly, and with it travel suspicion, reputation, and stigma to the individual and their family. From here, sexuality is not used because intelligence is “interested” in it for its own sake, but because it knows that the stigma associated with it can turn in this context into an effective pressure tool, even if it is not used immediately. It is not necessary for the officer to threaten directly with exposure or scandal; it is sometimes enough to hint, test, and keep what he caught for a later time. The impact does not stop at individual fear. In a small society with rapid circulation of rumors, a mere hint may turn into spreadable material, even without a direct statement or clear “evidence.” Here, the rumor itself becomes part of the effect of the psychological operation: it does not only hurt the person but pushes them into a permanent defensive position, puts them under the gaze of others and their suspicions, and makes them forced to explain themselves or deny what is said about them instead of living their life outside this accusation. In such a context, the rumor is no longer a side effect, but a means to strike social trust and expand the circle of suspicion within society.
When this is added to the testimony of the released Jerusalemite prisoner, Omar Al-Khatib, from the “Asir” (Prisoner) podcast about the circulation of the word “faggot” in Israeli prisons against Palestinians, this usage is no longer just an individual slip or personal crudeness; it is a broader lexicon of humiliation.
Perhaps this seems like a small example within a much more violent scene, but it also reveals another layer of deception: what is known as Pinkwashing. Israel, in its discourse directed abroad, is keen to market itself as a “modern,” “liberal,” and “friendly” state to LGBTQ+ rights, and uses this image to polish its moral and political position in the world, especially in the face of an Arab environment that is constantly presented as a single space of oppression, conservatism, and hostility to non-normative sexuality. However, this image, when transferred to the Palestinian reality, seems less like a principled defense of rights and more like an instrumental use of them.
When an Israeli intelligence officer uses sexuality as a testing ground, pressure, or stigma within a call with a Palestinian civilian, talk of “rights,” “acceptance,” or “liberation” appears only as an additional mask. Here, sexuality does not appear as a field for protecting the individual and their dignity, but a point from which they can be accessed. That is, what is presented externally as rights language can be used practically when it comes to the Palestinian as a tool of interest: for pressure, enticement, blackmail, or promoting the image of Israel as the “civilized” alternative to a Palestinian society that is intended to be portrayed as the only source of danger to queer individuals.
From here, the queer Palestinian is not offered “acceptance” from a position of recognition as a human being with full rights, but from a position of utilitarianism: What can your sexuality offer us? How can it enter into our security tools? How can it be used to confirm our image of ourselves abroad? And at the same time to confirm the description of society as backward and needing Israel to save some of its members from their surroundings. In this sense, pinkwashing works to whiten the image of the state, and to reformulate the relationship between the Palestinian and themselves and their society through a colonial lens that claims protection while practicing control.
This logic does not stop at pinkwashing alone, but also extends to the image of “humanity” that Israel tries to export to the world in other files, including the treatment of some Gaza patients or allowing them medical passage in specific circumstances, then presenting that externally as evidence of mercy or civilization. However, this image, in the Palestinian context, does not seem separate from the structure of control itself, because what is presented as a humanitarian act can turn at the same time into a tool for whitening the image of the occupation before the international community, and into a means of blurring the structure that originally produces the siege, disease, and need. In this sense, the washing is not only pink, but broader than that: a selective use of rights and humanity language to mitigate the impact of colonial violence in the eyes of the world, not to end it in the lives of Palestinians.
But the most important thing of all is that H.M. and A.A., despite the different degrees of their openness about their sexuality, emerged from the two experiences with almost the same feeling: that the channel was opened, and that they became, from “The Captain’s” perspective, labeled/addressed with Israeli intelligence, even if they did not eventually provide new information, and even if the call ended after a few minutes. In this specifically lies the danger of these moments: that the question does not only test what the person knows, but also tests what they fear, and what might make them susceptible to pressure later.
From Contact to Entrapment: What Does “The Captain” Want?
The goal of the first call with the Captain is not necessarily to recruit the person immediately, nor always to extract crucial information in its moment. In many cases, the first goal is simpler than that and more dangerous at the same time: measuring susceptibility. Is this a person who can continue to talk? Can they be frightened? Can they be compliant? Can they be pressured, lured, or used later? In this sense, the first call is not the conclusion of the operation, but its beginning.
Therefore, the first questions often come in the form of a test rather than a direct request. These questions seem ordinary or known to everyone on the surface, but their intelligence value lies in their form as well: Did the person answer quickly? Did they hesitate? Did they try to evade? In these same small details, the initial sorting takes place. The answer is an indicator of the personality: fear, confusion, and susceptibility to identification or resistance.
Thus, just starting the WhatsApp conversation becomes a significant moment in the eyes of intelligence. Not everyone who responds is a collaborator, and not everyone who responds falls directly into the trap of collaboration, but everyone who opens the door becomes—to some degree—a candidate for use later. That is, the contact itself turns into a type of nomination, and people are recalled at another, more fragile moment. In this sense, “The Captain” is a gatherer of a human database more than he is a seeker of instantaneous information to be used later.
Here, the meaning of “entrapment” (isqat) appears in its practical form, which is an open horizon from the first moment. Intelligence does not need to obtain full cooperation from the person to consider them within its scope. The rule is that the pressure card is rarely used immediately. Sometimes the officer keeps what he caught from the person until its use becomes more appropriate: at a potential crossing of a checkpoint, or when trying to travel, or in a harsher military circumstance, or when fear for the family intensifies, or when the need for survival becomes more urgent than ever. At that moment, the old channel may return as an open door that was not completely closed.
This also extends to creating chaos. When intelligence keeps sensitive or embarrassing information about someone, its value is not necessarily in exposing it immediately, but in the possibility of using it when it becomes more useful for them: to confuse a specific person, to ruin their reputation, to sow doubt in their surroundings, or to stir up trouble within a small society. In previous cases, publishing sensitive or embarrassing materials was a means of moving chaos and ruining the social or political fabric. Thus, the value of the “card” lies in the timing of its use.
If all this seems, sometimes, to be based on a small piece of information or a limited contact, that is because intelligence does not look at information the way individuals look at it. What seems to the confused Palestinian to be unimportant may enter, in the eyes of the other party, into broader analyses and more complex links. Gaza, by virtue of the siege, war, and the complexity of the field, is not a space about which intelligence possesses complete knowledge, and therefore any sign, no matter how limited it seems, may be valuable when added to others. From here, the person who ended the call quickly, or who only said things they think are already known, may not know if they provided something important or not. This ignorance itself is part of the pressure: to remain after the call stuck in a question with no answer: Did I say more than I should have? And has my name become saved with “The Captain”? And did it really end here? Here we know the core of the psychological operation—that it does not wait for total collapse, but starts from measuring the possibility of its existence.
Consequences and Risks: On the Individual and Society
The danger of “The Captain” begins in that the person does not leave the experience as they entered it. Where the question remains stuck in them: Did I say more than I should have? Has my name become saved? And did it really end here, or was this just a beginning?
This anxiety is part of the punishment itself. The person who refuses to cooperate after opening the door of communication remains under constant, and perhaps long-term, pressure because they know that the channel was opened once, and that the other party can return to it whenever they want. The person may change their number, or cut off means of communication, or try to convince themselves that the matter is over, but nevertheless, they still know that they have become labeled with Israeli intelligence, and that their name has entered some register, which makes the psychological impact continuous: fear becomes of the past and the future as well.
One can understand why any person who opens a communication channel with “The Captain” is viewed with great suspicion if they are exposed. The society, in many cases, does not read this channel as a moment of pressure or confusion or a desperate attempt to understand, but as a sign of weakness or involvement or susceptibility to cooperate with the occupation. Therefore, “The Captain” does not threaten the individual alone, but also threatens their position within their society.
However, all this should not lead us to an easy language of condemnation for those who responded under pressure. The war, especially in Gaza, creates pressures that exceed the normal capacity for endurance and measurement. Some communications do not stem from a desire to harm people or collaborate as much as they stem from panic, from the need to understand, and from clinging to any possibility that gives the family a sense of safety. Also, understanding this does not negate the other truth: that closing these channels, however harsh or difficult it seems, remains the safest option. When “The Captain” succeeds in extracting something from one person, the damage enters a wider network of harm that affects the whole group.
Therefore, the consequences here cannot be reduced to the fear of scandal or the possibility of recruitment only. The consequences are broader than that: a psychological pressure that may last a long time, a permanent feeling that the person has become classified and monitored, a delayed danger that may appear at the first direct contact with the occupation, and a permanent possibility of using what was collected of information or signs at a later moment, as well as a social impact that hits trust and sows suspicion.
In this sense, as the “Drones War” report explains, the impact of these contacts cannot be understood in isolation from the broader structure of monitoring violence in Gaza. The discourse of “precision” with which this type of technology is presented does not negate the fact that living under constant aerial surveillance produces a permanent threat and an accumulated psychological burden, turning fear into a constant element in daily life. Therefore, “The Captain’s” message does not reach a neutral self, but a person who has already been exhausted within an environment that continuously reproduces anxiety and anticipation. Also, this impact does not stop at the boundaries of individual fear, but extends to the broader social fabric, as constant monitoring and the threat hanging in the air are not limited to draining nerves, but reshape daily behavior, attention, the ability to focus, and relationships within society. In this way, this environment does not only work to frighten individuals, but to exhaust psychological and social life from its foundation, so that fear itself becomes part of the organization of life under control.
On the legal level, I do not claim here to issue a final judicial ruling, but these practices raise a strong suspicion of violating the prohibition of physical or moral coercion on protected persons, especially when practiced to obtain information from them or from third parties. They also raise suspicion of violating the prohibition of measures of intimidation or terrorism. On the level of the broader rules for the protection of civilians, international humanitarian law prohibits acts of violence or threats of violence when their primary purpose is to spread terror among the civilian population. Therefore, contacts built on threat, exploiting the fragility of war, uncertainty, and stigma to obtain a response from civilians, do not seem like just an ethical transgression, but a practice that raises a serious legal suspicion as well.
Conclusion
“The Captain’s” messages and calls are not a side detail in the war, nor just a devious way to get information. They are part of a broader structure in which control over Palestinians is managed through fear as much as it is managed through fire. What the testimonies reveal is that Israeli intelligence uses uncertainty itself as a working tool.
And “The Captain” is a mask for a full function. He requests information, measures fragility, creates an initial classification, and leaves an impact that exceeds the moment the contact ends. When sexuality enters into this process, it is one of the points that can be used to measure fragility, expand pressure, or deepen stigma. This is what makes it part of the structure of psychological warfare itself, not a margin to it. The insulting word, the hint, the fear of scandal, and the contradiction between the “rights” discourse and security practice—all this reveals an individual disdain and a broader way in which power works when it infiltrates people’s lives from their points of weakness… or from what might be imagined to be a point of weakness in them.
