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Israeli Media Criticized for ‘Not Showing Enough Palestinian Suffering’… While Palestinian Media Celebrate Oct. 7 Slaughter
Partygoers at the Supernova Psy-Trance Festival who filmed the events that unfolded on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Yes Studios
The Guardian‘s sister weekly newspaper, The Observer, recently published a feature that took aim at Israeli journalists.
Headlined, “‘Journalists see their role as helping to win’: how Israeli TV is covering Gaza war,” the piece by Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum describes how the Israeli media have worked to present a “uniformly patriotic vision of reality” since Hamas attacked Israel:
A ‘united we will win’ slogan sits on the screen for most TV news and talk shows. Politicians face heavy criticism, but interrogations of the military, its strategies, its generals and ordinary troops are muted.
The suffering of Gazan civilians barely features, veteran journalists say, three months into an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 22,000 people, displaced nearly 2 million, and left nearly half the population on the brink of famine and stalked by disease.
The message to Israeli journalists, Graham-Harrison and Kierszenbaum contend, is clear: “If you don’t have something unifying to say, just shut your mouth.”
It is bizarre criticism to fling at Israel’s media, echoing a similarly distasteful analysis by the BBC’s security correspondent Jeremy Bowen, who criticized Israeli news channels for focusing too much on the country’s trauma following the October 7 attacks, and not enough on Palestinian suffering.
Like Bowen, the point that Graham-Harrison and Kierszenbaum have missed in this latest condemnation of the Israeli press is that it is not unusual for any country, including its media, to rally together at a time of war, especially when it is facing an existential battle for survival.
As we previously noted, when the war is finished and the nation has mourned its fallen soldiers, the Israeli media will analyze how the war was conducted, which will include examining military tactics and whether Palestinian (as well as Israeli) casualties could have been avoided.
The piece goes on to acknowledge what has been described as the “disconnection” that Israelis feel over their pain and trauma at the October 7 atrocities being ignored:
Former national security adviser Eyal Hulata has described a ‘dome of disconnection’ created by the trauma of 7 October, with Israelis isolated inside, separated from a world that does not understand their pain, and their fear that Hamas might return.
The disconnection goes both ways though, critics say. Israelis feel that their agony in the wake of mass murder and kidnapping is ignored, but Israeli media presents its audience with a reality in which Palestinian suffering barely exists.
But again, what critics of Israel have utterly failed to grasp is that this disconnection doesn’t go both ways at all.
Indeed, the “both ways” argument would only hold water if, since October 7, Palestinian media outlets had been airing footage of the Hamas atrocities while showing the suffering of Israelis who lost family members and whose relatives are being held hostage.
It is a strange world in which the Israeli press is chastised for not showing Palestinian suffering in enough detail, while little is said about the fact that the Palestinian news media actually celebrated the October 7 massacre.
The piece ends with some comments from Meron Rapoport, a journalist at anti-Israel outfit +972 Magazine, who claims the “dehumanising of Gaza’s civilians” is a result of a “long disengagement from covering Palestinian lives.”
In the next paragraph, Graham-Harrison and Kierszenbaum hint this trend may continue by observing that “commentators on Arab affairs are all Jewish Israeli, and while Israeli media correspondents are posted in New York and London, there have never been regular positions in Ramallah or Gaza…”
That’s right, there haven’t ever been regular positions for Israeli journalists in Ramallah or Gaza. But having seen what Hamas does to Israelis when given the chance, is it any surprise that Israeli journalists aren’t reporting live from the Strip?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Israeli Media Criticized for ‘Not Showing Enough Palestinian Suffering’… While Palestinian Media Celebrate Oct. 7 Slaughter first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.