Red proisraelí difunde desinformación sobre Ceuta con narrativa de "invasión" y "guerra"

A network of digital channels with hundreds of thousands of followers, loosely aligned with Israeli interests, has spent the past weeks flooding Spanish social media with distorted accounts of the Ceuta crisis—comparing the city to Gaza, invoking military invasion narratives, and accusing the Spanish government of treason. The operation centers on Estrategias Militares, a YouTube channel with 560,000 subscribers whose videos have accumulated nearly 190 million views, paired with 70,800 followers on X and almost 27,000 members on its Telegram distribution list. The network broadcasts in Spanish but maintains documented connections to Israel, though its anonymous operator insists the links are personal and cultural rather than financial.

The core message is simple and inflammatory: Ceuta has become Gaza. This framing appears across the network's output with calculated regularity, paired with ominous background music and sensationalist editing designed to trigger alarm. The narrative builds from there. According to Estrategias Militares, 100,000 foreigners crossed the border on July 30 and 31, with 20,000 remaining in the city—figures that exceed official data and most independent estimates. This is not merely an influx, the network insists, but a military invasion orchestrated by Morocco with the knowledge and complicity of Pedro Sánchez's government. The channel has described this as a phased operation culminating in the forcible seizure of Ceuta, a prediction delivered with the gravitas of military analysis and the emotional register of wartime propaganda.

The accusations against the Spanish government escalate from negligence to active betrayal. Estrategias Militares has claimed that Sánchez harbors a golden dream of converting Ceuta into Gaza, that his administration is deliberately allowing invaders to surround the city's military arsenal, and that the government possesses undisclosed leverage from Morocco—perhaps compromising material—that explains its supposed willingness to surrender Spanish territory. One video suggested that if the government remains in power, someone in Spain must act, and if the king does not, the people will. The channel has called for citizens to take to the streets and remove the government by force. These are not fringe whispers; they are broadcast to hundreds of thousands of subscribers across multiple platforms.

The network's reach extends beyond its own channels. ACOM, an organization defending Israeli interests in Spain, amplifies Estrategias Militares content with increasing frequency. Javier Negre, a far-right disinformation spreader and Trump propagandist, republishes the channel's videos through EdaTV. The network has also organized fundraising for a campaign called Un asado para nuestros guerreros—barbecues for Israeli soldiers—directing followers to Israeli crowdfunding platforms. The operator maintains anonymity, citing threats from Hamas and Iran, while simultaneously claiming to work from multiple countries he declines to name. His X profile was located in Israel until this week, when he changed it to Morocco after El País inquired about the discrepancy.

When confronted with specific false claims, the operator's tone shifts markedly. On the scabies epidemic he had described in alarming terms—"epidemic of scabies in the city. Total fear"—he retreated to technical language about case clusters and epidemiological risk factors. The Spanish Ministry of Health has clarified that no epidemic occurred. On Morocco's supposed declaration of war, he reframed it as a political and military assessment rather than a formal declaration. These recalibrations suggest awareness of the gap between what he broadcasts to his audience and what he can defend in writing to a newspaper.

Experts in disinformation analysis view this network as a deliberate infrastructure designed to amplify Israeli narratives while destabilizing Spain during a security crisis. Marcelino Madrigal, a technologist specializing in disinformation campaigns, describes it as a coordinated ecosystem combining far-right channels with Israeli proxies, operating in the context of broader Israeli hostility toward Spain over its position on Gaza. Iago Moreno, a digital propaganda specialist, notes that effective state propaganda does not require direct financial ties or explicit orders; informal actors who align with state interests and operate within sympathetic ecosystems can achieve the same amplification. The network's strength lies not in its originality but in its integration into a larger web of channels that existed before the Ceuta crisis and now function as transmission belts for messages that might otherwise lack penetration.

The human cost is diffuse but real. The narratives circulating through these channels frame migrants as invaders and military threats, language that has already appeared in street protests and that carries potential for violence. They delegitimize government authority at a moment when coordinated response is necessary. They create permission structures for citizens to view political opponents as traitors deserving removal by force. And they do so under the cover of military analysis and geopolitical expertise, lending false credibility to speculation presented as fact. The Spanish government has begun to name these networks as sources of disinformation, but the infrastructure persists, adapting its claims when challenged and finding new platforms for distribution.