Ground War, Air War, Online War

Armed with their keyboards, their cameras, YouTube and the blogosphere, the Israeli Defense Force is taking publicity online.

Major Avital Leibovich, the head of the Israeli military's Foreign Press branch, told reporters, "the blogosphere and new media are another war zone [and] we have to be relevant there."

While the Israeli Defense Forces have an official website with updates and articles about "Operation Cast Lead," since the war begun the IDF also launched IDF on YouTube , the IDF blog, and a way to follow the IDF on Twitter.

In addition to the raw battle scene footage on YouTube and pictures of the first fallen solider on the blog, yesterday the IDF held a press conference on Twitter, an instant-messaging community site.

But the Israelis aren't the only one's using the web for a new kind of propaganda war. According to Bloomburg:

Hamas has been trying to conduct it's own public relations campaign. After YouTube censored its video posts -- the group is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., the European Union and Israel -- Hamas began using an alternative video-sharing site called AqsaTube, said Weimann, who monitors Islamic militant activity on the Web.

The Hamas site has not been updated for a number of days now, most likely because the creators are hiding underground.

So as the war continues in the air and on the ground, don't forget it's also online.