Israel's Media Still Has the Audacity to Conceal Gaza's Horrors, but Showing It Won't Stop the War - Opinion - Haaretz.com
To the list of crimes, one must now add – more than ever – those of the Israeli media. Israel is knowingly and maliciously violating a signed international agreement and launching an unrestrained, savage attack on the Gaza Strip. In its opening move, Israel killed more than 400 Palestinians, including 174 children.
Israel acknowledges that this time, the targets aren't terrorists but civilians – an explicit war crime. It is killing for the sake of killing, with the goal of reigniting the war and preserving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, long after the quota of revenge and punishment for the October 7, 2023, attack was met.
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None of this will be covered by the Israeli media: mutilated bodies loaded onto donkey-drawn carts, pickup trucks and private cars, or carried by bare hands; teenagers digging through rubble with hammers and bare hands, without any heavy equipment, trying desperately to rescue survivors and recover remains of the dead; wounded people lying bleeding on the filthy floors of what were once hospitals; children in tattered rags searching for their parents; parents in tattered rags carrying the bodies of their children.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are once again embarking on their life's journey − human tides dragging the remnants of their world on their backs, fleeing to nowhere. Sputtering cars and collapsing carts groan under the weight of the displaced and their few belongings; tens of thousands of refugees, escaping for the second, third time, with nowhere left to run.
Palestinians leave Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip with their belongings, heading towards Gaza City following Israeli evacuation orders on Tuesday.Credit: Bashar Taleb/AFP
Amputees in makeshift wheelchairs drag themselves through the sand, while elderly people lie across car hoods. Remnants of families who lost loved ones in the first round of fighting are now losing whoever remained. The terror of bombings and fear of death hangs over all.
None of this has appeared in the bulk of Israeli media coverage over the past two days. Only the hostages and the dangers they face in Gaza. The concern for them is understandable and justified, but more than two million other people are living in Gaza. What about them? Are their lives expendable simply because they aren't Israeli? Are they all terrorists, even the unborn children of pregnant women fleeing for their lives? Shouldn't their suffering be reported? Shouldn't their fate be known?
This dereliction of duty, this criminal betrayal by the media, can no longer be forgiven. After October 7, when emotions were raw, perhaps it was expected − though even then, real journalism had a duty to report the full truth.
Palestinians transport casualties following an Israeli strike, in the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday.Credit: Abd Elhkeem Khaled/Reuters
But what about now, when most of the media is mobilized in the struggle against the government and in support of the hostages, and even the more established and conservative commentators admit that renewing the war will be disastrous – why aren't war crimes being mentioned in the Israeli media? Should Gaza still be erased from view? Should what's happening there be concealed, denied and suppressed? All just to satisfy and entertain, and avoid upsetting the audience, God forbid?
Had the Israeli media been fulfilling its basic role and showing the reality in Gaza over the past two days, it's unlikely that the sky would've fallen or any opinions have changed. The Palestinian child – the orphan, the amputee – has yet to be born who could touch the heart of the Israeli mainstream, which finds justification and legitimacy for every injustice.
Israelis look at Gaza from a viewpoint near the Israel-Gaza border as the IDF restarts strikes in Gaza.Credit: Amir Cohen/ Reuters
Many Israelis believe Gaza deserves all of this, that no one there is truly innocent, that Gazans are to blame for their own fate. But the privilege of looking away − and especially of refusing to show − can no longer be tolerated. You killed, you destroyed, you expelled, you razed − at the very least, show it. Where does this audacity to conceal come from? This brazen refusal to even look?
Go ahead and celebrate in the face of every traumatized Gazan orphan, rejoice over every destroyed home, laugh at every father kissing his dead son's body, delight in every wheelchair-bound amputee, sing your victory songs. But at least show – and see – what we've done. Show what we continue to do to them.