Israeli writer: What the Israelis are watching from Gaza

With these words, Israeli journalist Nir Guntag, from Haaretz, witnessed the performance of the media in Israel during the war in Gaza. I decided to convey his testimony verbatim, because it reflects the true picture of this performance based not only on opacity...

“I watch Israeli television and read newspapers in Israel, and I do not succeed in understanding what the conditions of the civilian population in Gaza look like. What we see here is the following: films ranging in length from 20 seconds to one and a half minutes about Israeli army soldiers who move in the territory of the Gaza Strip, and these are films produced by the Israeli military spokesman. We see destroyed buildings or large craters as a result of the bombing. And in recent days, we also see crowds of people that reports say are heading towards the south of the Gaza Strip. 

These are all the things through which the Israeli human being is exposed to the human beings in the Gaza Strip in the overwhelming majority of the media. 

According to it, what we see is destruction to buildings and streets without the presence of people. Editors on Israeli television channels and media outlets believe that the Israelis are stupid and should not expose images of the humanitarian conditions in Gaza. 

There is no doubt that public opinion around the world and especially in the United States, sees other pictures from Gaza. Therefore, its position on Israel and the war it is waging in the Gaza Strip is shifting... I think what the editors fear most is the Israeli viewing and reading public, as this audience for the most part does not want to see pictures "You show the Gazans as human beings so as not to create a general impression among public opinion here and around the world that they are suffering like us."

With these words, Israeli journalist Nir Guntag, from Haaretz, witnessed the performance of the media in Israel during the war in Gaza. I decided to convey this testimony literally, because it reflects the true picture of this performance based not only on obfuscation, but also on involvement in the “war effort,” and on promoting the essence of what is included in the Israeli doctrine when committing massacres, which is not seeing the Palestinian as a human being.

This is not the first time in the history of the Israeli wars against Gaza that the Israeli media has turned into a protective shield for the massacre, and into a means that seeks to demonize the Palestinian, with the admission of purely Israeli parties.

To prove what we say, it suffices to recall that the 2014 war witnessed a version perhaps no less severe than this blackout. 

During that time, for example, one of the media professors at Israeli universities wondered: If we are really right, and if each of the air raids on Gaza is a moral and strong “Protective Edge” (referring to the name of that war “Operation Protective Edge”), and if the people and residents of Gaza deserve all of this, so why do they hide the data and results from us? Why don't they tell us what the entire world's population can know at the push of a button? He continued to say: Here (in Israel) they talk about an alleged democracy on the surface, but in practical terms they practice a policy of obfuscation and cover-up of the facts, similar to the press in the defunct Soviet era. This is what the Israeli media looked like throughout the days of the Israeli military aggression against Gaza.

The importance of returning to the 2014 war lies in the fact that 

Israel began to pursue, in a more extensive and brutal manner than before, a policy of targeting homes and residential buildings in the Gaza Strip, in addition to bombing medical clinics and hospitals, which the population needs more than ever during wars. Until the fourth day of the war, the European Hospital in Khan Yunis was bombed by Israeli warplanes, causing 17 hospital patients to be injured, after the gypsum ceilings collapsed in the intensive care and pediatric departments and the hospital’s waiting room. The bombing also severely damaged a medical clinic in Khan Yunis run by a volunteer organization. In Jabalia camp, warplanes raided a clinic affiliated with the Palestinian Red Crescent, leaving 15 wounded among the medical staff, in addition to disabling several ambulances. A warning was sent to Al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza that it must be evacuated, because the Israeli army intends to bomb it!