Not so long ago, the world witnessed very contrasting images.
On the one hand, we saw on our screens Palestine TV journalist Salman al-Bashir, visibly distressed by the news of the death of his colleague Mohammad Abu Hatab. Hatab was on air 30 minutes ago. Upon returning home, Hatab and eleven members of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Al-Bashir burst into tears: “We can’t take it anymore. We are exhausted, we are here victims and martyrs waiting to die, we are one after the other and no one cares about us or the large-scale catastrophe and crime in Gaza.” He then removed his protective gear, adding: “No protection, no international protection at all, no immunity to anything, this protective gear doesn’t protect us, nor do these helmets.”
We also saw CNN footage, carefully choreographed and organized, following the Israeli army’s ground operation in Gaza. We were told that CNN was “integrated” with them. As a condition of entering Gaza with Israeli air support, media outlets are required to “submit all documents and images to the Israeli military for review before publication.” CNN had agreed to these conditions.
As was not already evident, media and journalism have become a central battleground in this war between Israel and Gaza. And in the battle over how the war is reported in Gaza, journalists have been the first victims.
On December 3, Shima El-Gazzar, a Palestinian journalist with the Almajedat network, was killed along with members of her family during an Israeli airstrike on the town of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
On November 23, an airstrike on his home in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza claimed the lives of journalist Muhammad Moin Ayyash and around 20 members of his family.
On November 19, Bilal Jadallah, director of Press House-Palestine, a nonprofit organization that supports the development of independent Palestinian media, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on his car.
On November 7, it was reported that Palestinian journalist Mohammad Abu Hasira was killed along with 42 members of his family in an Israeli airstrike on his home near Gaza City.
Just two days earlier, media reported that Mohamed al-Jaja, another Press House-Palestine media worker, was killed along with his wife and two children in an airstrike in northern Gaza.
On October 30, Nazmi al-Nadim, Palestine TV’s deputy director of finance and administration, was also killed in an airstrike alongside members of his family.
On October 26, the world saw Wael Dahdouh, head of Tel Aviv Tribune’s Arab bureau, bury his “wife, son, daughter and grandson,” killed during an airstrike on the Nuseirat camp. In a statement, the Israeli army said it was targeting “terrorist infrastructure in the region”.
On October 13, prominent Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah – who was wearing protective gear with the word “press” written on it – was killed by an Israeli rocket fired across the Israeli-Lebanese border.
In total, according to the Project Committee on Journalists (CPJ), 63 journalists and media workers, most of them Palestinian, were killed in and around the Gaza Strip between October 7 and December 6. Jonathan Dagher, Middle East desk, said: “What is happening in the Gaza Strip is a tragedy for journalism… The situation is urgent. We call for the protection of journalists in the Gaza Strip and for foreign journalists to be allowed to enter the territory so that they can work freely.”
However, the battle is not limited to who will report this war. It is also a battle over how war is reported. The words, phrases and images used on air to describe events on the ground are important.
In conversation, John Collins, professor of global studies at St. Lawrence University and director of the independent media outlet Weave News, reminded me: “Words construct reality for us. In war, the words journalists use are supposed to help us clarify what is happening and why. But too often, these words serve to distract us, to mislead us or to shield the powerful from any responsibility.”
This deception occurs at a very basic level in the way Palestinian deaths are portrayed in news reports. While the Palestinians would be “dead”, the Israelis would be “killed”. The latter formulation recognizes an active act of murder committed by someone, but the former is passive. As if to say that no one is responsible for the Palestinian deaths or to suggest – as Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht did after the attack on the Jabalia refugee camp – that the Palestinian deaths are simply an inevitable “war tragedy”.
Of course, the downplaying of the Palestinian death toll also occurred when President Biden questioned the accuracy of the numbers, given that the Health Ministry in Gaza is run by Hamas. He said: “I am sure that innocent people were killed, and that is the price of waging a war… But I have no confidence in the numbers used by the Palestinians. » Such an allegation effectively sowed doubt about the true severity of Palestinian suffering, with several media outlets assessing and reporting on how the Health Ministry calculated the number of casualties – while international humanitarian agencies insisted that the figures of the ministry were indeed reliable.
How the media defines the “why,” “how,” and “what’s next” of this ongoing war also shapes public opinion. As a specialist in disinformation and propaganda, Nicholas Rabb has found that the “misleading rhetoric and relentless, one-sided coverage” of American and Israeli media has enabled an “unqualified demonization of the Palestinians.”
This includes right-wing media in the United States engaging in fear-mongering about an upcoming “World Jihad Day” proclaimed by Hamas. A Homeland Security official said there was no credible evidence of an imminent threat on U.S. soil. However, after listening to conservative radio and worried about the imminence of “Jihad Day”, a 71-year-old man attacked his tenant, a Palestinian American woman, before stabbing her six-year-old son to death.
The Honest Reporting group, which monitors and reports on anti-Israel bias in the media, has also raised ethical questions about Gaza-based photojournalists working with Reuters, Associated Press, CNN and the New York Times and how they were able to capture images of the border areas crossed on October 7. He asked: “What were they doing there so early, on what would normally have been a quiet Saturday morning?” Was this coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable news agencies that published their photos approve of their presence in enemy territory, alongside terrorist infiltrators?
While all of the accused agencies vehemently denied allegations that they had any knowledge of the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu picked up the story and said: “These journalists were complicit in crimes against humanity; their actions were contrary to professional ethics.”
Outraged by attacks on journalists, independent journalism and the media’s portrayal of war, 750 journalists signed an open letter calling for the protection of journalists. The letter also encourages journalists to “tell the whole truth without fear or favor” and to use “precise terms well defined by international human rights organizations” such as “apartheid”, “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” in their reports. The letter concludes by saying: “Recognize that distorting our words to hide evidence of war crimes or Israel’s oppression of Palestinians is journalistic malpractice and an abdication of moral clarity. The urgency of this moment cannot be overstated. It is imperative to change course.”
Faced with the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, few can deny the urgency of the situation. However, only time will tell whether this will result in recognition of the importance of protecting journalists and journalism in times of extreme crisis.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.