IDF, Hamas fight it out on Twitter

Following the assassination of the head of Hamas’s armed wing Ahmed Jabari on Wednesday, the conflict between the IDF and the Gaza Strip-based Islamist group spilled over into the Twittersphere, where the official account of the al-Qassam Brigades posted a fiery retort to a warning issued by the IDF spokesperson to Hamas officials.

After the airstrike on Jabari, the army announced that it had launched a “widespread campaign on terror sites and operatives in the Gaza Strip, chief among them Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets.” Then, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office tweeted a warning to Hamas officials:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/IDFSpokesperson/status/268780918209118208″]

Many users of the social networking site responded to the tweet, most prominently the official account of the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/AlqassamBrigade/status/268791630583193600″]

The exchange received multiple retweets and comments, and novelist Hari Kunzru described it as the “first Twitter war.”