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Media Outlets Use Daring Israeli Rescue of Hostages to Shield Hamas, Attack Israel
Fernando Simon Marman and Louis Hare, two Israeli hostages who, according to the Israeli military, were freed in a special forces operation in Rafah, Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, reunite with loved ones at the Sheba Medical Center, in Ramat Gan, Israel, February 12, 2024, in this still image obtained from a video. Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY
Early on Monday, February 12, news outlets reported that Israel had rescued two hostages from Hamas captivity in Gaza.
But instead of sticking to the facts of the daring overnight raid in Rafah — which happen to justify Israel’s claim that the southern Gaza city is a Hamas stronghold — prominent news sites framed the story in a way that minimized the terror group’s role and presented Palestinians as the victims.
The result inverted reality: Positive news was portrayed as negative and good became evil.
Such framing, which subtly cast doubt on the worthiness of the Israeli rescue operation, was achieved by using one or more of the following tactics:
Selectively using the word ‘”freed” instead of “rescued.”
Uncritically emphasizing the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes during the raid.
Adding lengthy paragraphs focusing on the plight of 1.4 million displaced Gazans in Rafah, and their fear of a potentially imminent Israeli invasion.
Ignoring Hamas altogether.
The Guardian, for example, packaged the first two points in a headline that reads: “Two Israeli hostages freed in Rafah, says IDF, as Palestinians report dozens of deaths.”
Who freed the hostages? Hamas? Islamic Jihad? An invisible force? Unclear.
Using the word “freed” rather than the value-laden “rescued” muddies the dramatic nature of the Israeli operation and whitewashes Hamas. That’s because it blurs the lines between the two sides and can also be mistakenly attributed to the terror group, as seen above.
But what’s worse is the added framing of Palestinian casualties — some of whom are undoubtedly terrorists killed in the raid.
And it’s not just in the headline.
The first paragraph of the story leads with the Palestinian death toll, according to “Gaza health officials,” who don’t differentiate between terrorists and civilians:
At least 50 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes on the southern city of Rafah, according to Gaza health officials, as the Israeli military said it had freed two hostages during a raid by special forces on the city.
The rest of the story — except for 2.5 paragraphs dedicated to the Israeli hostages — includes 18.5 paragraphs on the suffering of displaced Palestinians in the area, amid global warnings against a looming Israeli invasion of Rafah.
It is not clear why such background paragraphs don’t include any information on Hamas’ entrenchment amid or under the civilian population of the city, particularly in light of the fact that Israeli hostages had been held in an apartment building there.
The Guardian’s story was partly based on a Reuters report, which also used “freed” in its headline and framed the Israeli operation with unverified casualty numbers that serve the Palestinian narrative:
We’ve fixed your headline, @Reuters. The hostages were rescued, not “freed.”
But who are the “67 killed”? Israeli soldiers killed many terrorists and came under heavy fire during the rescue operation.https://t.co/sgHVRC3OPY pic.twitter.com/IlMSdQhXn7
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 12, 2024
Unlike Reuters, the Associated Press and the BBC did use the verb “rescue.”
But they framed their headlines similarly:
And the live coverage page of the BBC still led with the lethal Israeli strikes:
Voice Of America (VOA) went further and did not even mention the Israeli rescue operation in its headline about the Rafah strikes:
It’s been some 9 hours since it was publicly announced that Israel had rescued two hostages from Rafah.
But the headline and story below are still the lead on the @VOANews website.https://t.co/2AkmWqS1GM pic.twitter.com/Fi1u5X643P
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 12, 2024
VOA’s story starts with what seems to be random Israeli air strikes that killed tens of Palestinians sheltering in Rafah. Again, no context is provided, nor is there any critical caveat about the problematic source for Gaza’s casualty figures:
Israeli airstrikes Monday hit the southern city of Rafah, killing at least 67 people according to local health officials in the area of the Gaza Strip where 1.4 million civilians have already fled to in order to escape the war.
Residents described heavy bombing, with the Israeli strikes hitting several houses and mosques.
It’s not until the third paragraph that VOA mentions the Israeli rescue operation, although it is almost glossed over as a mere coincidence:
“…the strikes coincided with a mission that rescued two Israeli hostages who were being held by Hamas militants.
NBC News also made the Israeli airstrikes look like an indiscriminate bombing of Rafah, unrelated to the fact that Hamas had been holding the Israeli hostages there:
Some media outlets didn’t just change words or add context.
National Public Radio, for example, completely omitted Hamas from its story about the Israeli rescue operation.
It did not mention Hamas even once, as if the Israeli forces had been fighting an unidentified enemy:
The Israeli military said on Monday that special forces rescued two Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
Heavy airstrikes were conducted during the operation and there were initial reports that Palestinians were killed in the strikes.
Disturbingly, NPR relied on a military report that clearly identified Hamas as the group that kidnapped the hostages on October 7, while its terrorists killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and abducted some 240 others.
Why did NPR ignore that?
Whatever the reason, the result is the whitewashing of the murderers responsible for taking the hostages in the first place.
Indeed, it’s possible to sum up by repeating the cliche that framing is everything.
But it shouldn’t be.
Journalists should avoid it and simply report the facts accurately.
They should also be aware of the ramifications of their words, especially when these words are used to minimize evil — the evil of a terror group that holds hostages while using innocent civilians as a human shield.
And when journalists fail to do so, news consumers deserve to know that they are being misled.
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.
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Barcelona’s Primavera Sound Music Festival Showcases Tunnel Installation That Simulates Gaza Bombings

An outside view of the “Unsilence Gaza” installation at the 2025 Primavera Sound music festival. Photo: Screenshot
A reproduction of a tunnel that simulates the sound of bombings in the Gaza Strip is being showcased this year at Barcelona’s annual Primavera Sound music festival, which opened on Wednesday.
The unique installation, titled “Unsilence Gaza,” allows visitors to walk through a dark tunnel-like path where they hear noises of explosions as well as dramatic, ominous music. At the end of the tunnel, there is a wall with a message that says in English, Spanish, and Catalan: “Silence isn’t the opposite of the sound of bombs, it allows them to happen.” The outside of the installation features the message: “When everything blows up, don’t hide in the silence.”
The installation makes no mention of the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization that started the ongoing war with Israel after it orchestrated the deadly, mass terror attack across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
UNSILENCE GAZA #PrimaveraSound2025 Instalación de 15 metros de túnel que simula el ruido de un bombardeo a Gaza en el festival de #primaverasound de #barcelona pic.twitter.com/L7XnpF06u1
— Barcelona.lives (@BarcelonaLives) June 4, 2025
The installation was designed by Palestinian sound engineer Oussama Rima and is located by the main entrance of the annual music festival, held at the Parc del Fòrum. T-shirts and sweatshirts with the words “Unsilence Gaza” are also being sold at the festival and proceeds from the sales will be donated to the Palestinian Medical Relief Society to support emergency medical aid.
The Primavera Sound Foundation said on its website that the installation aims to remind people about the power of sound and how, especially in Gaza, it is associated with pain, fear, “torture and trauma.”
“We have normalized seeing war, but not listening to it,” the foundation said. “We live in a world saturated with violent images. Hypervisibility has anaesthetised us: we see, but we do not react. Sound, on the other hand, can still move us. At Primavera Sound, sound is emotion, connection, pleasure. But sound can also be the opposite: it can become a weapon. With this installation, we want to remind you that in Gaza and other parts of the world, sound is pain. It is fear. It is torture and trauma.”
In its statement, the foundation made no mention of Hamas or Israel. Instead, it talked about “genocide,” increased military spending, “warmongering rhetoric and attempts to criminalize and silence voices that defend peace.” The installation was conceptualized by the non-profit organizations Casa Nostra, Casa Vostra and the International Institute for Nonviolent Action (NOVACT), with support from the Primavera Sound Foundation.
More than 150 artists will perform at the Primavera Sound music festival this year including Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, Chappell Roan, FKA Twigs, HAIM, Fontaines D.C., IDLES and Magdalena Bay.
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Sephardic Jewish Film Festival in NYC to Feature Array of Movies Celebrating Culture, Tradition, History

A promotional image for the film “Giado: Holocaust in the Desert” being screened at the 2025 New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival. Photo: Provided
The New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival (NYSJFF), also known as the Sephardic Film Festival, returns to New York on Sunday for a week-long celebration of films that spotlight the traditions, cultures, and histories of Sephardic Jews.
This year’s festival will features documentaries, feature films, and shorts that highlight stories set in Israel, Morocco, France, Turkey, and more. It kicks off on Sunday night with a Pomegranate Awards ceremony, whose honorees will include French-born Israeli singer Yael Naim, Iranian-American writer Roya Hakakian, and French-Tunisian actor and screenwriter Michel Boujenah. Acclaimed Brazilian Jewish singer-songwriter Fortuna will receive the ASF Pomegranate Lifetime Achievement Award for Preservation of Sephardic Culture. Fortuna will also perform at the opening night ceremony with Trio Mediterraneo and special guest Frank London, a Grammy-winning trumpeter and co-founder of The Klezmatics.
NYSJFF is organized by the American Sephardic Federation.
A documentary about Naim will make its world premiere at the film festival on Monday and the screening will be followed by a Q&A with Naim and the film’s director, Jill Coulon. Also screening on Monday is the 1985 French comedy “Three Men and a Cradle” starring Boujenah, who will participate in a Q&A after the screening. Boujenah won the coveted César Award for best supporting actor for his role in the film, which is about three adult friends who are enjoying their single life until they get stuck taking care of a baby.
The Sephardic Film Festival will additionally feature the North American premiere of the films “The Last Righteous Man (Baba Sali)” and “Jinxed.” The latter is a Hebrew-language comedy, directed by Hanan Savyon and Guy Amir, about two repairmen who go to fix a television and instead find a dead body in a client’s apartment. They are then mistaken for murder suspects and get mixed up with the mafia and police investigations, as bad luck follows them around.
The Sephardic Film Festival will also host the New York premieres of “Matchmaking 2,” “Neuilly-Poissy” and “The 90s – The Revelry — Hillula,” which was a box office hit in Israel.
The film festival line-up includes “Over My Dead Body,” which explores Persian-American Jewish traditions; a documentary short about efforts to preserve the Ladino language spoken by Sephardic Jews; and a film that highlights the first-hand testimony of Yosef Dadosh who, at the age of 20, was one of 3,000 Libyan Jews deported by the Italians to the Giado concentration camp during the Holocaust.
This year, the Sephardic Film Festival is part of a new, larger cultural festival called Festival Sefarad, which will be a citywide celebration of Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewish communities. Festival Sefarad will include film screening, musical performances, workshops, book talks, and Shabbat dinners throughout the month of June. The festival is organized by the American Sephardic Federation with support from the UJA-Federation of New York.
“Our inspiration to expand the 27th NY Sephardic Jewish Film Festival into the first-ever Festival Sefarad is the acute need, in the face of so much adversity and antisemitism, to create communal, intellectual, and cultural events that bring all Jews together,” Jason Guberman, executive director of the American Sephardi Federation, said in a statement. “With the support of the UJA-Federation of NY and 50 organizations throughout Brooklyn, Manhattan, Long Island, and Queens, the ASF is hosting over 40 events that showcase the dynamism, resilience, and joy of the Greater Sephardic world for Jews of all backgrounds and friends.”
The 27th New York Sephardic Jewish Film festival runs from June 8-June 15. The festival concludes with a live concert by legendary artist Enrico Macias. Tickets for the film festival are available online. The annual festival, which started in 1990, has previously screened films from Morocco, India, Yemen, Kurdistan, and more.
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Trump Administration Imposes Sanctions on Four ICC Judges Over ‘Baseless Actions’ Targeting US, Israel

An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
US President Donald Trump‘s administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court, an unprecedented retaliation over the war tribunal’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.
Washington designated Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin, and Beti Hohler of Slovenia, according to a statement from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“As ICC judges, these four individuals have actively engaged in the ICC’s illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel. The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,” Rubio said.
The ICC slammed the move, saying it was an attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution that provides hope and justice to millions of victims of “unimaginable atrocities.”
“It is with deep concern that we note the latest actions announced by the government of the United States … These … are regrettable attempts to impede the court and its personnel in the exercise of their independent judicial functions,” the ICC‘s governing body said in a statement on Friday.
Both judges Bossa and Ibanez Carranza have been on the ICC bench since 2018. In 2020 they were involved in an appeals chamber decision that allowed the ICC prosecutor to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes by American troops in Afghanistan.
Since 2021, the court had deprioritized the investigation into American troops in Afghanistan and focused on alleged crimes committed by the Afghan government and the Taliban forces.
ICC judges also issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim Al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict. Alapini Gansou and Hohler ruled to authorize the arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant, Rubio said.
The move deepens the administration‘s animosity toward the court. During the first Trump administration in 2020, Washington imposed sanctions on then-prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and one of her top aides over the court’s work on Afghanistan.
The measures also follow a January vote at the US House of Representatives to punish the ICC in protest over its Netanyahu arrest warrant. The move underscored strong support among Trump‘s fellow Republicans for Israel’s government.
Sanctions severely hamper individuals’ abilities to carry out even routine financial transactions as any banks with ties to the United States, or that conduct transactions in dollars, are expected to have to comply with the restrictions.
But the Treasury Department also issued general licenses, including one allowing the wind-down of any existing transactions involving those targeted on Thursday until July 8, as long as any payment to them is made to a blocked, interest-bearing account located in the US.
The new sanctions come at a difficult time for the ICC, which is already reeling from earlier US sanctions against its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, who last month stepped aside temporarily amid a United Nations investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct.
The ICC, which was established in 2002, has international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in member states or if a situation is referred by the UN Security Council.
However, the ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. Nonetheless, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
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