Last week, former Israeli Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said the quiet part out loud. Speaking in Tel Aviv, the former journalist turned politician slammed the international media for what he saw as perceived bias against Israel. “If the international media is objective, it serves Hamas. If it just shows both sides, it serves Hamas. If it creates symmetries between sufferings without first checking who caused it, it serves Hamas,” Lapid argued.
Lapid suggested there was almost no way to highlight what’s happening to civilian Palestinians without helping Hamas.
In short, Lapid suggested there was almost no way to highlight what’s happening to civilian Palestinians without helping Hamas. This is an argument not just about equivalency on the battlefield, but also about the war of narratives and information being fought in the media and online.
Lapid’s speech came around the same time that Axios reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken had asked the Qatari prime minister to rein in Al Jazeera Arabic’s coverage of the atrocities in Gaza, which he reportedly said could inflame tensions in the region.
But as officials seek to control how the international news media cover this war, the actual journalists responsible for that coverage — the experts not hundreds or thousands of miles away — are being injured and killed.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of Monday at least 31 journalists have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war thus far — that includes 26 Palestinians, four Israelis and one from Lebanon.
Other journalists are trying to cover the war while losing members of their families.
My friend and former colleague Wael al-Dahdouh, Al Jazeera Arabic’s Gaza bureau chief, buried his wife, son, daughter and grandson after they were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
I first met Wael when I was based in Gaza as a foreign correspondent in 2008. A larger-than-life figure, Wael embodies the best of Palestinian journalists. Possessing unrivaled stamina even in the most dangerous of conditions and an encyclopedic knowledge of Gaza, Wael is both a loyal colleague and beloved family man. Journalism runs deep in the family. Several of Wael’s immediate relatives have worked as reporters or cameramen. In fact, one of his sons, 15-year-old Mahmoud, was also an aspiring journalist before he was killed alongside his mother and sister in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza. The teenager recorded an ominous warning in the early days of the war, asking if the world could “help them stay alive.” The world did not.
My friend’s family was killed last Tuesday night. The very next day, Wael was back on the air, explaining in a video posted by Al Jazeera that it was his “duty to get back to work as quickly as possible despite everything. As you can see, the firing is ongoing everywhere. There are airstrikes and artillery shelling, and things continue to develop.”
The work these journalists do on the ground, especially in Gaza, is crucial to helping the world understand the full story of the war and those affected by it.
But it’s becoming increasingly impossible for them to do their jobs — with basic supplies running low amid constant Israeli bombardments. In fact, Israel’s military has told Reuters and Agence France-Presse that it cannot guarantee the safety of their journalists operating in the Gaza Strip.
NPR producer Anas Baba relayed the grim situation on the ground. “I was forced to leave my job to go to my family in order to evacuate them,” he told his colleagues. “Where am I going to hide them? Is there any safe place in Gaza?”
The work these journalists do on the ground, especially in Gaza, is crucial to helping the world understand the full story of the war and those affected by it.
There’s another issue to address here related to the problem of officials seeking to control or influence information about the war.
Last week when asked about the mounting civilian death toll, President Joe Biden cast doubt on the accuracy of the numbers being reported by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. “I have no notion whether Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed,” Biden said. “I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.”
The United States, Israel and countries throughout the West have designated Hamas a terrorist organization and have labeled its statements untrustworthy propaganda.
In an apparent response to Biden’s remarks, the ministry released the names and ages of more than 6,000 people it says have been killed since the war began. NBC News has not independently verified those names and ages.
Despite Biden’s comments, according to health officials, the numbers from the Health Ministry may actually be underreported given the massive destruction in Gaza and that countless numbers of people are still buried in the rubble. Importantly, during previous wars, the Gaza Ministry’s numbers were often very close to the actual numbers confirmed after the war by independent organizations.
Which brings us right back to the importance of having journalists on the ground who can verify and corroborate accounts — that is why we are forced to rely on numbers supplied by the Gaza Health Ministry in the first place. The few members of local media left are risking their lives to report the truth. People like Wael al-Dahdouh deserve global protection and support, not indifference or suspicion. And their stories cannot be undermined by leaders looking to boost a specific narrative.
