Israeli–Palestinian Conflict in Video Games

Games about the conflict have used several recurring formats. Political simulations put players in the roles of Israeli or Palestinian leaders, while journalistic games ask them to interview sources and assemble reports.[1][2] Other titles and modified online worlds emphasize combat, attacks, checkpoints, or armed struggle.[3][4]

The field also extends beyond purpose-built games. User-created events on Roblox and a modified Grand Theft Auto V role-play server have turned general-purpose platforms into venues for political expression, simulated violence, and terrorism.[3][5] Cooperative projects and a school-based intervention have instead used gaming to create contact between Israeli and Palestinian children.[6][7]

Conflict-themed games have appeared in several forms, from early commercial titles to short-lived online games and more elaborate political simulations. A 2011 account described Intifada, released in the late 1980s, as putting the player in the role of an Israeli soldier in the territories. Players could choose weapons such as rubber bullets or tear gas to disperse Palestinian demonstrators, and their conduct could cause the Israeli government to fall. The report noted that the ability to kill Palestinians had caused controversy when the game appeared.[8]

A U.S. Department of State report published in 2008 discussed games in a chapter on antisemitism in private media, under the heading “Anti-Semitic Video Games on the Internet.” It described Under Ash as involving “the mass killing of Israelis and Jews,” but gave no further information about the game’s plot, setting, or gameplay. The report also described Ethnic Cleansing as a white-supremacist game in which players kill Jews and other minorities, with a rocket-launcher-wielding Ariel Sharon as its final opponent. The latter title was presented as an example of antisemitic content, rather than as a neutral representation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[9]

The Syrian company Afkar Media made games about the Palestinian territories from a Palestinian perspective in which players could portray a fighter battling Israeli forces, according to the same 2011 account. It did not name those titles or give release dates or detailed gameplay descriptions. A separate report described Afkar Media’s Under Siege as following a young man who, after being beaten by Israeli jailers, joins armed struggle against soldiers in Gaza and the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria. That game reportedly did not let players shoot civilians or carry out suicide bombings. Afkar Media’s Road Block Buster, by contrast, centered on a Palestinian boy taunting soldiers and finding ways around military roadblocks.[8][10]

The account of Under Siege should not be conflated with a separate report’s brief reference to Under Ash and Under Siege. That report identifies both as earlier conflict-themed games, but its wording does not clearly indicate which title it means when describing a shooting game about a Palestinian family during the Second Intifada, resistance, and conflict with Israeli forces.[3]

A different direction emerged with games designed to explore political decision-making. In 2006, Danish company Serious Games Interactive was developing Global Conflicts: Palestine, described as combining entertainment with a political-science lesson. Its CEO said the project aimed to reach audiences less accessible to traditional sources and to offer them more than an occasional sound bite.[1] In 2007, the Israeli-American partnership Impact Games released PeaceMaker, a simulation intended to promote peace by placing players in the role of either Israel’s prime minister or the head of the Palestinian Authority. The shared objective was to achieve sustainable peace.[2]

Reports give differing descriptions of PeaceMaker’s development and distribution. One account identified Impact Games as its developer and said the company was formed by Carnegie Mellon University students; it named Asi Burak, a Bezalel graduate and former Israeli intelligence officer, as a founder who worked with Eric Brown to turn the idea into a commercial product. A later report described Burak as the developer within Impact Games and the Peres Center for Peace as distributor from 2007, while a 2011 account instead attributed development to the Peres Center. The discrepancy is reported here without treating either account as definitive.[2][11]

The game appeared in several languages and used real photographs and video clips. Burak said its intended initial audience was Israelis and Palestinians, but that international interest led to sales in 23 countries, mainly in Europe and the United States. At the time of the 2007 account, the game could be downloaded from its official site for $20.[2]

PeaceMaker turned the conflict into a strategic balancing exercise. It was described as a turn-based game in which each turn represented a week and the player could take one action. Its roughly 30 possible actions included making or evacuating West Bank settlements, giving conciliatory or belligerent speeches, and providing or withholding funds from the Palestinian Authority. The game tracked reactions among Israelis, Palestinians, settlers, Hamas, the United States, the United Nations, and Egypt. Its challenge was to maintain support while managing competing responses.[2]

A 2009 account framed the goal as winning a Nobel Peace Prize by reaching 100 percent public approval among both Israelis and Palestinians, with balanced action required instead of surrender or all-out war. It noted that the game addressed checkpoints, settlers, and terrorism. In a 2024 profile, Burak described PeaceMaker as exploring a two-state solution and argued that games could help players understand the complexity of leadership and conflict resolution. He characterized peace as requiring decisions and navigation of crises rather than passivity.[11][12]

The game’s educational value has itself been debated. Burak argued that taking on a leader’s role could offer a fuller experience than reading news. Renard Gluzman, identified as head of the gameology program at Beit Berl, called the game a failure in his view because it disclosed its intended goal in advance; he regarded it more as an expression of opinion than as leadership training.[11]

Global Conflicts: Palestine used a journalistic rather than executive role. Its player created a young journalist in a city resembling Jerusalem, interviewed Israeli and Palestinian sources, and wrote an article for an Israeli, Palestinian, or European newspaper using collected quotations. Players could choose a pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, or neutral position at the start of a mission. A media researcher cited in a later account observed that the game showed students what a checkpoint looked like and what it might be like to wait at one.[1][11]

Educational use of conflict games also highlighted the importance of interaction between players. Reporting on research by media scholar Ronit Kampf said students who played in pairs performed better than those playing alone, a result she attributed to discussion and joint decision-making. Players with more extreme views who played alone tended to entrench those views and fail, while knowledge of the conflict—as well as digital gaming ability—contributed to success. In some classes, teachers tracked students’ moves and analyzed them afterward.[11]

The 2008–09 Gaza war generated a wave of simple Flash games on online gaming sites. A 2009 report described Gaza Defender, in which players shot at Israeli aircraft; Save Israel, a timed game about detecting and destroying incoming rockets; and Raid Gaza and Gaza Defense Force, whose mechanics emphasized the disparity between Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters. The games were quickly made and lacked developed plots.[10]

The creator of Save Israel, Ami Hanya, said he wanted to provoke responses and help Israelis understand how quickly a rocket could arrive. He had considered a different approach, he said, but concluded that he needed to show the situation as he saw it. He added postscripts to the Hebrew and English versions affirming support for Israel’s military response.[10]

Aviv Heilweil designed Gaza Defense Force as a deliberately futile game: a handful of rock-throwers faced tanks and aircraft. Heilweil said the imbalance was meant to make a point about the disparity of forces, and described the situation as absurd regardless of who was right. He also said the game’s humor felt less appropriate once ground troops were involved.[10]

During the 2014 Gaza war, known in Israel as Operation Protective Edge, flash games such as Pride of the Rockets gained popularity. The game had players guide a missile launched from Gaza around Israel’s Iron Dome toward civilian areas.[3]

Other games presented more sustained narratives of armed conflict. A 2014 report described The Liberation of Palestine, a strategy game developed by amateur programmers in Gaza, in which players could swap prisoners, buy weapons, and launch attacks against Israeli settlements. Its developers told Sky News Arabia that they intended it to build familiarity with weapons and foster resistance among Palestinian children. One developer separately argued that negotiations would not achieve a positive result and that armed struggle was more effective.[13]

In 2015, Gaza Man, offered through Google Play, was reported to let players control a keffiyeh-wearing fighter who shot Israeli soldiers with different weapons. The game’s description said its purpose was to encourage continued violent struggle against Israel and keep a desire for liberation alive among users in the occupied territories.[14]

Israeli-developed Rising Eagle offered another combat-game perspective. A 2011 report said it was released in December 2007 after four years of development and an investment of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Developed by Invasion Interactive of Holon, it allowed players to portray Israeli soldiers fighting Iranian soldiers in Gaza. The company stopped operating in late 2009.[8]

Conflict settings also appeared in the Grand Theft Auto V role-play community. An October 2025 report by the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism described Magic City as a Palestinian-operated, modified role-play server recreating aspects of the Israeli–Palestinian landscape. Its virtual world included West Bank-like geography, IDF vehicles, checkpoints, the separation barrier, Israeli police, and Palestinian Authority security units. Players could explore, join organized-crime groups, or participate in simulated acts of violence or terrorism targeting Israeli soldiers and police, Palestinian security forces, and civilians.[3]

The report said the server’s website claimed more than 100,000 registered users, over 50,000 Discord members, and more than 700 daily active players; these figures were attributed to the server itself. It described the server’s story as conveyed through geography, symbols, setting, and player choices rather than scripted text. Players took the role of a Palestinian character living amid restrictions and military presence, while Discord and TikTok extended the experience beyond the game. The report interpreted some clips as glorifying violence or presenting it humorously. Although it said Magic City was not a traditional recruitment tool or formal radicalization hub, it argued that the environment and its byproducts encouraged and incited violent activity against Israel.[3]

The report’s examples included attacks on IDF vehicles or police, checkpoint encounters, attacks on civilian targets, and role-play as Israeli security forces. One clip showed a character on a motorcycle aiming a weapon at a Merkava tank, with a caption asking which “hero” had influenced the player; the report interpreted this as glorifying armed resistance. Another showed a player dressed as an Israeli police officer taking cover, alongside Hebrew text and laughing emojis, which the report read as parody. These are the report’s interpretations of the clips, not proof of their effects on players.[3]

Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque became a prominent example of disputes over how games depict Palestinian armed struggle and Israeli forces. A 2021 report identified its developer as Nidal Nijm, a Brazilian resident of Palestinian origin. The story follows Ahmad al-Falastini, whom the game’s website describes as jailed and tortured by the IDF before joining a Palestinian resistance movement to seek revenge and “free Palestine.” The game was reported to offer first- and third-person perspectives and split-screen multiplayer.[4]

The same account quoted Nijm as saying he wanted to challenge portrayals of Arabs as terrorists in Western film and games, and instead show Arabs fighting for their people’s freedom. It described political symbols and martyrdom imagery and quoted a website disclaimer stating that the story and groups were fictional and that players fought soldiers, not Israeli civilians. These descriptions reflect the developer’s stated position and the reporting; they do not settle how the game should be interpreted.[4]

CAMERA, an advocacy organization, reproduced descriptions from the Jerusalem Post’s original coverage, including missions across Palestine, guns, vehicles, varied settings, boss fights, bullet-time mechanics, and alternating first- and third-person play. It also quoted coverage saying Nijm had worked alone on the game for around ten years. CAMERA described a recurring image reading “Rejoice, O mother of the martyr, rejoice!” and missions involving attacks on Israeli soldiers and sabotage of the Iron Dome. CAMERA argued that these elements glorified violence and endangered civilians; those are its evaluations of the game and its implications.[15]

CAMERA also documented sharply different public responses. It quoted game developer Luc Bernard arguing that games can address real-world issues but “should not encourage violence,” and Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center calling the game a glorification of terror and saying Steam should be boycotted if it offered the title. Nijm defended the game as depicting Palestinian resistance against Israeli military occupation, saying that the player targeted soldiers rather than civilians.[15]

CAMERA said that after communication from its Israel office, the Jerusalem Post revised parts of its coverage: the headline and opening sentence were changed to foreground attacks on IDF soldiers, quotation marks were added around “freedom fighters,” and descriptions of the missions and movement were altered. CAMERA criticized the revised article for still omitting comments from critics. This account of the editorial changes and the criticism of them is CAMERA’s.[15]

Ynet reported in December 2023 that an earlier version of the game had been published roughly three years before its article. It described scenarios involving fighting Israeli forces in Gaza and playing as a Lions’ Den member during an Israeli security operation in Jenin. It said some scenarios included suicide-bombing as a way to kill soldiers. The version Ynet reviewed did not include shooting civilians, and the report said the game had already prompted anger in Israel over its content.[16]

In the same report, Nijm described the game as a way to raise awareness about the war in Gaza and said his aim was to show the Palestinian side, not encourage terrorism. He put his position this way: “On the contrary, I want to show that Muslims are not engaged in terrorism but in fighting.” Ynet, by contrast, characterized the game as overtly political and supportive of terrorism. These are distinct claims about intent and interpretation, and accounts of the game’s content differ in emphasis.[16]

Ynet described scenarios drawing on real locations and imagery, including IDF bases near the Gaza border such as the Gaza Division base and Nahal Oz outpost. It reported a raid using a hang glider and a reversed red triangle, which the article associated with Hamas and Al Jazeera videos marking soldiers’ positions during fighting in Gaza.[16]

A December 2024 report said the game had been released on Steam in 2022 and that a November 2024 update added a mission titled “Operation Toufan Al-Aqsa,” described as referring to the October 7 attack. The game had been made unavailable to users in the United Kingdom after a request from British authorities; the report also said it was blocked in Germany and Australia over age-rating complications. Nijm argued that the UK removal was politically motivated and compared the game with other shooters.[17]

A November 2024 N12 report likewise described the game as available on Steam since 2022 and said a later update added a scenario in which players used a drone to enter an Israeli military base and attack soldiers. N12 said the update did not explicitly name Hamas, although it associated green headbands worn by characters and allies with the group. It reported that the independent developer was from Brazil, that the game remained available on Steam in most countries, and that it had been removed in the United Kingdom at the request of the country’s counterterrorism unit and in Germany and Austria after failing age-rating review. The developer’s Steam-page statement denied promoting terrorism, antisemitism, or hate speech and described the game as protest against Israeli army occupation of Palestinian lands; N12 said Valve had not responded to its inquiry by publication.[18]

A December 2023 account also noted that Valve had not responded to Ynet’s request for comment by publication. The reported content, the developer’s stated aims, and critics’ judgments should therefore remain distinct rather than being treated as interchangeable accounts of what the game means.[16]

The conflict has also appeared through user-generated material and social activity inside general-purpose games. In October 2023, Roblox hosted virtual pro-Palestinian gatherings; one had reportedly been visited more than 275,000 times. The same report relayed an Israeli ministry warning that characters carrying Palestinian and Saudi flags had attacked players identifying as Israeli, as well as a parent’s concern that children might have seen users reenacting the October 7 attack. These accounts describe reported incidents and concerns, not all Roblox activity.[5]

Roblox said its rules allowed expressions of solidarity but prohibited content endorsing violence, terrorism, hatred, or support for a specific political party. The company said moderators and automated tools were used to enforce those standards.[5]

A separate incident concerned Splatoon 2, a four-player shooting game in which characters called “Inklings” splat ink and claim territory. UK Lawyers for Israel reported that a child encountered an anti-Israel expletive displayed as user-created graffiti in the game. Nintendo apologized, said the graffiti was not part of the game’s design, condemned the message, and explained that reported offensive content could be removed and repeat or serious offenders could be suspended or banned.[19]

Games also formed part of broader online exposure to wartime material. An Anti-Defamation League survey conducted on October 31 and November 1, 2023, asked 1,118 respondents who said they played online games about hate or misinformation encountered in multiplayer games, including Call of Duty, League of Legends, and Roblox. Fourteen percent said they had seen at least one of the specified pieces of Israel–Hamas-war misinformation while playing online multiplayer games. The figure measures respondents’ reported exposure to online content; it does not measure the prevalence of conflict-themed games or establish an effect of gameplay.[20]

Not all games about the conflict have centered on combat or political argument. Games for Peace, described in a 2014 report as an initiative by Uri Mishol, brought Israeli, Palestinian Authority, and other Middle Eastern children together in Minecraft activities designed to require cooperation. A special server automatically translated messages between Hebrew and Arabic, and the initiative also ran Minecraft Talk sessions for eighth-grade classrooms. Mishol said the interaction focused on the game rather than borders or rights of return, and described dialogue as a first step toward peace.[6]

The project combined cooperative play with real-world limits and occasional friction. Mishol said there had been little fighting and almost no name-calling, but recalled one Saudi player building swastikas and being criticized by players from Egypt and Jordan. Administrators intervened when individual players were abused. About 100 players had taken part in the first two Minecraft Challenges by the time of the report.[6]

A longitudinal, school-based intervention likewise used cooperative video gaming to create virtual contact between Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli children. It included six virtual sessions and two face-to-face sessions; the source does not identify the games used. Compared with a control group receiving contact within their own group, children in the intergroup program showed reduced bias on cognitive and emotional measures, including less stereotyping, negative emotion, and discriminatory tendency toward the other group, alongside greater willingness to engage in social contact. The reported effects remained six months after the intervention and were consistent across measures, gender, and ethnic groups. The research appeared in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, volume 92, as article 104065, and was published January 1, 2021.[7]

More general discussion of online gaming as a setting for cross-border encounters has included both promise and caution. A 2010 account considered possible interaction among Israelis, Palestinians, and people elsewhere in the region. Hebrew University scholar Paul Parush said differing levels of awareness could limit interaction. Tel Aviv University scholar Ronit Kampf cautioned that casual encounters between groups did not necessarily grow over time, while arguing that teamwork could offer greater potential for seeing one another as individuals.[21]

Games depicting the conflict differ sharply in political framing, and controversy often turns on whether a title is understood as political expression, education, resistance, or the glorification of violence. Fursan al-Aqsa illustrates the divide: its developer says he seeks to present a Palestinian perspective and does not intend to encourage terrorism, while some reporting and critics characterize its scenarios and imagery as supportive of terrorism or as glorifying violence. Accounts also differ over details of the content, including whether the version reviewed allowed players to shoot civilians.[15][16]

Other disputes concern the meaning and effects of games rather than a single title. The ICT report interprets selected Magic City clips as glorifying violence and argues that the server may normalize armed struggle and influence attitudes beyond the game.[3] The educational value of PeaceMaker has also been questioned.[11] Research on cooperative gaming, by contrast, reports reduced intergroup bias in a specific intervention.[7] These findings and interpretations concern different games, populations, and claims; they do not establish one general effect for video games about the conflict.

A proposed survival-horror game about the October 7 attack was presented at a public-diplomacy conference in January 2024 as a way to convey the experiences of Israeli victims to younger audiences. Players would take the role of attendees at the Nova music festival and try to escape as Hamas terrorists stormed it. The Holon Institute of Technology spokesperson said it was only an idea at that time, not a released or completed game.[22]