Israel’s war on Lebanon was not merely a military confrontation broadcast on screens. At its core, it was a war of narratives, produced moment by moment on social media, outside the monopoly of traditional media and beyond closed partisan frameworks. In this space, women did not appear only as victims or humanitarian symbols, but as political actors actively producing the narrative itself.
What unfolded on digital platforms was neither fleeting interaction nor “online activism” in its superficial sense. It was a conscious political act, even when some women refused to label it as such. Documenting bombardment, analyzing discourse, deconstructing propaganda, criticizing resistance when it turns into monopoly, and linking the war to its regional and economic events redefined who holds the right to speak in times of war.
This article draws on the findings of a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with 25 women active on social media during the war on Lebanon. They come from diverse professional and political backgrounds, including journalists, political and digital activists, researchers, and content creators. The size of their audiences ranged from around one thousand followers to more than half a million, and they used various platforms, most notably Instagram, X, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
The study aimed to unpack how women used these platforms to produce war-related narratives, identify the roles they assumed, the tools they relied on, and the political and digital costs of their practices within a context in which social media has become a central arena in the struggle over meaning, not merely a space for publishing or individual expression.
Historically, women in wartime are pushed into predefined roles: relief work, care, endurance, or identification with the image of the victim. What women’s experiences during this war reveal, however, is a rejection of such reductionism.
Even when they engaged in humanitarian work, they assumed leadership and organizational roles and linked relief efforts to political questions: Who decided on the war? Who pays its price?
Social media enabled women to break out of this mold—not because the platforms are neutral or fair, but because they created a breach in the monopoly over narrative production. Through this breach, women entered the heart of public debate: as field journalists, analysts, critics of sectarian discourse, and producers of political knowledge from feminist and anti-colonial positions.
As women articulated it, narrative was neither a personal story nor an emotional opinion; it was an ethical and political responsibility. What to show? What to conceal? Which images to reshare? What language to use? In a war that was broadcast directly on screens, without having time that allows for verification or long reflection, narrative becomes a double-edged sword: either a tool of awareness or a tool of justification.
Many emphasized that narrative is not innocent; it is tied to collective memory and to what will later be written as “history.” Documentation and analysis were therefore seen as acts of resistance: resistance to forgetting, resistance to the normalization of violence, and resistance to reducing war to numbers or slogans.
Notably, a large number of women rejected being described as “influencers,” even when some of them had large followings. This rejection was not merely a linguistic choice, but a political one. The concept of “influence,” as used today, is tied to fame, the digital economy, and marketing, not to prompting cognitive or political change.
For them, the benchmark was not the number of followers, but credibility, position, and impact on public debate. Some, despite limited audiences, considered themselves actors because they were changing ways of thinking. Others, despite hundreds of thousands of followers, rejected the label because their goal was not “influence,” but conveying the truth as it is.
In reality, this digital space was not without cost. Women faced both self-imposed and external censorship, content removal, bans, and account suspensions—especially when content related to Gaza, historical comparisons, or criticism of Israel. Here, algorithms ceased to be mere technical tools and became political actors complicit in producing violence, by silencing certain narratives and amplifying others.
Despite this, women did not withdraw. Many distinguished between censorship as an ethical choice and circumventing platform restrictions as a survival strategy.
Perhaps the most important conclusion is that the narrative of this war is not written later; it is being written now, in stories, videos, analyses, and in the daily struggle over meaning.
In this struggle, women are no longer excluded. What women have done through social media during this war is to anchor themselves within this conflict, not as victims, not as symbols, but as political actors.
To read and download the research paper, click here. Available in Arabic only.
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