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Revolting: How the Media Used Oct. 7 Anniversary to Focus on Hamas-Instigated War in Gaza
The bodies of people, some of them elderly, lie on a street after they were killed during a mass-infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip, in Sderot, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
October 7, 2024 marked one year since Hamas’ murderous rampage through southern Israel. As Israelis commemorated the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust, how did the international media cover this somber anniversary?
By and large, the media coverage was both empathetic and nuanced, with news organizations dedicating much of their coverage to the effect that October 7 has had on Israel and interviewing survivors, family members of the 1,200 who were murdered during the atrocities, and family members of hostages still being held in Gaza.
However, both online and in print, some media outlets chose to use the anniversary to spotlight the cost of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, despite the fact that October 7 is not the key anniversary of the war.
In effect, they chose Israel’s national day of sorrow as the springboard through which to criticize Israel’s defensive military operations and to subtly move the spotlight away from the atrocities committed by Hamas and other Palestinians on that fateful day.
For example, on its Instagram page, TIME Magazine highlighted the work of a Palestinian photographer, who had first spoken to the American magazine early in the war and was now speaking to it again after a year of documenting the fighting and destruction in Gaza.
However, as TIME noted, October 7 was not the anniversary of the first time this Palestinian photographer spoke with the magazine, it was a couple of weeks later.
So, why did the magazine choose to feature his story on October 7, and not on the actual anniversary of its first conversation with the Gaza-based photographer?
Similarly, on October 7, Reuters’ photos account on X (formerly Twitter) posted an award-winning image of a Gazan woman cradling a dead child’s body, captioning it “A picture of her grief gripped the world. A year on, Gaza woman haunted by memories.”
However, this image is from October 17.
Why did the esteemed wire service choose to post this image on October 7 and not on the actual anniversary of when it was taken?
A picture of her grief gripped the world. A year on, Gaza woman haunted by memories Mohammed Salem pic.twitter.com/LgiGxu7ty2
— Reuters Pictures (@reuterspictures) October 7, 2024
On its Instagram page, Vanity Fair’s sole post on October 7 paid lip service to the atrocities before turning its attention to the war with a post entitled “The Sorrow of Gaza, One Year After the October 7 Attacks.”
The accompanying quote by war correspondent Janine di Giovanni not only created a moral equivalence between those killed in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas War (which includes killed Hamas terrorists) and Israeli civilians that were intentionally massacred on October 7, but also implicitly drew a connection between the war in Gaza and the Holocaust and the African & Balkan genocides of the 1990s.
On its X page, Sky News chose to commemorate October 7 by publishing an in-depth look at the destruction in Gaza, deeming it “a year since the war in Gaza began.”
In this long thread, only a passing reference was made to Hamas and several posts were specifically designed to paint Israel’s defensive campaign in the coastal enclave as some kind of cruel and unusual operation that falls outside the bounds of normative warfare.
No, it’s not a year since the war in Gaza began, @SkyNews.
Today is a year since Hamas launched its brutal attack on Israel, murdering 1,200 & taking some 250 hostages.
If you are going to look back at what has been lost, maybe start with that. https://t.co/N5WRqkO7Es
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 7, 2024
Along with social media posts, there were several front pages of printed newspapers that also moved the spotlight away from the atrocities of October 7.
For example, The Independent’s front page, headlined “365 days of horror since October 7,” was a mashup of different numbers related to the war in Gaza, but only featured one number related to the Israeli victims of Hamas.
This is how the @Independent marked October 7: by editing the jihadis out of the story. The word “Hamas” doesn’t appear once. pic.twitter.com/V4yZMQ15vf
— Jake Wallis Simons (@JakeWSimons) October 7, 2024
For other newspapers, it wasn’t the replacement of coverage of Hamas’ atrocities with coverage of the war in Gaza that was the issue, it was the lack of substantial coverage altogether.
For example, The Chicago Tribune’s front page for October 7 featured two Israel-related articles — one AP copy about present fighting in Gaza and an article about how the war’s effects on the Chicago city council’s sentiments.
Compared to the front pages of other newspapers, which dedicated a substantial portion of the page to a reminder of what occurred on October 7, The Chicago Tribune’s coverage was clearly lacking.
And it wasn’t only news coverage that was an issue with some media outlets, but also opinion pieces.
On the eve of October 7, The Guardian saw fit to publish a grotesque op-ed by Naomi Klein, which accused Israel of turning the trauma of October 7 into a weapon.
Grotesque: Israel can’t even mourn its dead from Oct. 7 without @guardian platforming Naomi Klein to accuse the country of weaponizing its trauma.
If you can’t sympathize with innocent civilians butchered by terrorists, then you are the problem.https://t.co/ONhRmJ3pac pic.twitter.com/1emgTKzxa6
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 6, 2024
Similarly, on October 8, The Los Angeles Times published an op-ed by Daoud Kuttab which seemed to both minimize the horrors of October 7 while also implicitly justifying them.
This is beyond disgusting. @latimes published an opinion piece that tries to justify Hamas butchering civilians https://t.co/HzyNkYDMEC pic.twitter.com/S0r2Gr6sgA
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 8, 2024
As we pass a year since the October 7 atrocities and the subsequent beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, it is reasonable for media organizations to place extra focus on the toll that the war has wrought on the Gaza Strip and its Palestinian residents.
However, what is not reasonable is using the anniversary to take focus away from the atrocities and massacres that were committed by Hamas and its allies in southern Israel and instead use the opportunity to place a spotlight on what is occurring in the Gaza Strip.
By using October 7 to focus on Gaza (especially when commemorating an event that took place after October 7), these media organizations are helping to create a false narrative that seeks to diminish what occurred on October 7 or to create a moral equivalence between those atrocities and the situation in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing war.
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 Revolting: How the Media Used Oct. 7 Anniversary to Focus on Hamas-Instigated War in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.