Despite its United States-backed advances in the war on Gaza after the Oct 7 attacks, Israel has not done itself any favours in the eyes of the world.
In a special appearance on the New Straits Times' chat show, Beyond the Headlines, security and counter-terrorism expert Dr Ahmad El Muhammady from International Islamic University Malaysia's International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilisation said Israel had further damaged its already ruined international reputation.
Referring to the hospital bombing in Gaza on Oct 17 that killed 500 people, he said that further shifting its narrative to assign blame on Hamas instead, after denying they were responsible for the attack, had damaged Israel's reputation irreparably.
"If you look at the narrative now, Israel is trying to fight on many fronts.
"Not only are they fighting off threats from Gaza (Hamas), but they are also fighting to defend their PR (international) image."
He said that out of the Christian-run Al-Ahli Arab National Hospital bombing, there had been a few narratives that Israel had tried to establish.
"The first narrative was that it was a misfire of rockets. The attack was coming from Hamas. That was in the beginning and the Americans (the US government) bought the narrative and they tried to sell it to the world. But it seems that the world doesn't really buy it.
"So, then, they changed the story. They said that under the hospital, there was a Hamas base. There is an underground metro for Gaza below (the hospital) where they stored weapons, equipment and have all these kinds of facilities belonging to Hamas.
"Therefore, because of that, they justified the attacks on Gaza. Those are the two narratives we can see right now. It is not helping them," he explained.
Ahmad also touched on who seemed to be controlling the narratives coming out of Israel.
"Right now, the ones who are controlling is the Israeli war cabinet — which is all run by the fanatics.
"One aspect we have to consider to understand what's going on is to study who is in the war cabinet and who is running Israel.
"The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and their military chief of staff — this group belongs to the fanatics. They control the media, meaning they make statements about what's going on.
"They make decisions and those decisions are detached from reality. And the world is watching but they don't care. Because what they care for the most is that revenge is exacted on Hamas, the people, and collective punishment. And that works against Israel in the future."
He added that even though Israel appeared to be winning the war in terms of military might, in the long run, it would not serve them any good.
"I don't know what's going to happen to repair the Israeli image to the whole world — not just to Muslim nations. They may have all the backing from the US and gained more ground in terms of their occupied territories in Palestine, but Israel has done so at the expense of its international image," he added.