The international media’s coverage of Hezbollah’s deadly rocket attack on July 27 represents another low in reporting on Israel since the war began.
Here’s a brief summary of the events: On Saturday afternoon, Hezbollah announced it had launched 100 rockets at an Israeli army base in the Golan Heights, near the Druze town of Majdal Shams.
Tragically, one of the rockets hit a soccer pitch where children were playing, killing 12 and injuring another 19.
As the victims’ identities emerged and it was confirmed that they were not Jewish Israelis, Hezbollah backtracked on its initial statement and denied responsibility for the attack.
So, why did the media obscure these clear facts in reports on the attack?
Sky News, for example, described it as an “attack on a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan” that killed 11 people.
While the mention of the “occupied” Golan seemed to legitimize Hezbollah’s indiscriminate attacks, more tellingly, Sky News didn’t mention that all the victims were children and even implied in the subheading that the attack was retaliatory.
Compare the headline to Sky’s coverage published on the same day of an Israeli airstrike on a Hamas command and control center inside the Gaza Strip:
It’s telling that Sky chose not to explain why the IDF targeted the structure, yet made sure to highlight that one child was among the dead. This selective reporting speaks volumes.
Similarly, the BBC used the less emotive term “young people” to describe the victims in their headline, which also emphasized Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s attack.
🧵The media’s reporting on Hezollah’s rocket attack that killed 12 Israeli children has been disgraceful. Want to see the hideous lows journalists sank to last night?
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) July 28, 2024
Both the Washington Post and NPR connected Hezbollah’s strike to Israel’s war in Gaza. The Washington Post simply announced that “attacks in Gaza and Golan Heights” had occurred and NPR‘s headline didn’t mention that children in Israel were killed at all, effectively downplaying the severity of the incident.
And CNN shifted focus from the many victims of the attack — the single deadliest strike on Israel since the October 7 Hamas massacre — to Hezbollah’s denial that it was responsible.
The reporting on Hezbollah’s strike revealed an appalling media double standard. Casualties in Israel are stripped of sympathy. For many journalists, Israel is an “occupier” and an “aggressor,” and even its civilian losses are framed as a sort of just consequence.
This simplistic narrative robs the innocent people lost in this war of their humanity and provides justification for the worst terrorist atrocities.
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Credits via Flash90: Ayal Margolin, Michael Giladi
