The violent war waged by the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip 13 days ago was a fig leaf that fell to the depravity of many Western media outlets that continue to offer "free lessons" on neutrality, professionalism and freedom of expression.

Since the Palestinian resistance, led by the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, many Western media outlets have become mouthpieces for the Israeli occupation, repeating its narratives and lies, and moving away from the values of professional media, according to media experts.

From the "lie of beheading Israeli children," to calling the aggression itself "the war of Israel and Hamas," and not least accusing Islamic Jihad of responsibility for the massacre at the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, the Western media has fallen into the trap of putting interest ahead of professionalism.

The essence and form of press coverage in Washington, London, Berlin and other capitals applauding Israel is determined by the identity and ethnicity of the victims rather than by the value of human life itself.


Suffice it to say, for example, that the BBC, while covering the war, uses the word "dead" to refer to those killed in Gaza, and "killed" to describe the dead Israelis.

This is simpler than others than what can be described as a "media scandal" whose slogan is lie and then lie until the world believes you. Post fabricated accounts of beheadings that never happened or women raped that didn't, and if your slanders are exposed, offer a fleeting apology for your haste while another colleague receives a relay baton from you to spread an equally heinous lie by using artificial intelligence to transform the image of a sick dog on a recovery bed into that of a child charred by the fire of terror.

'Does Hamas build tunnels under hospitals and schools?' ⬇️ #BBCYourQuestionsAnswered

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) October 16, 2023

The resistance is bombing its people!

This is how the Israeli occupation wants us to believe it, and some Western media follow suit. A "lie" launched by the spokesman for the occupation army to cover up the massacre of the bombing of the Baptist Hospital in Gaza, and was quickly reported by international media.

But it is interesting that the BBC, a day before the hospital bombing, published a report that "innocently" asked: "Is Hamas building tunnels under hospitals and schools?"

The report adds that "the tunnel network is likely to flow under neighborhoods crowded with homes, hospitals and schools, giving the Israeli occupation the advantage of suspicion when it comes to bombing such targets."

The answer came from the occupation the next day by committing the massacre of the hospital and the killing of hundreds of patients and their families, women and children, in a massacre that may not have been seen in history.

CNN's correspondent repeated what the occupation army said, saying that "Hamas may have made a mistake in firing rockets to fall on the hospital in Gaza, according to the Israeli army."

BREAKING: Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed in a strike on the al Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Sky News is unable to independently verify the report.

Follow the latest on this story

— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 17, 2023

Britain's Sky News tried to claim neutrality when it wrote on its X account that the Ministry of Health in Gaza was talking about hundreds killed in shelling on the Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, adding, "Sky News was unable to independently verify the report."

How did Biden get dragged into circulating false information about #عملية_طوفان_الأقصى? How did the Western media machine contribute to the transmission of news that they took through "gossip"? | By Fatima Triki #الأخبار pic.twitter.com/vuiC1HK3vG

— Al Jazeera (@AJArabic) October 13, 2023

Fabrication stage logo

Full Western support is reflected in the adoption of all news from Israel by the highest leadership in the United States, even if it is fabricated, as happened with the claim that "Hamas beheaded Israeli children", which was fabricated by Israeli sources and talked about by US President Joe Biden, as well as well-known Western media outlets.

The news that was adopted in the West as facts - without verification - was devoted to hours of coverage before it quickly appeared that it was based on gossip and said by a soldier named David Ben Zion, a settler who has always called for the killing of Palestinians, and an Israeli channel has happened and the news flew out as a fact in major Western television channels and topped their newspapers.

Activists paint the headquarters of the BBC in red to protest its adoption of the Israeli occupation narrative and its silence about Israeli war crimes in #Gaza #Operation_Al-Aqsa_Flood#Photo pic.twitter.com/1Zaxhm1rSi

— Al Jazeera (@AJArabic) October 14, 2023

According to a report published by the British website Middle East Eye, the British media was dominated by reports of a massacre committed by Hamas fighters in settlements in southern Israel, and they were widely alleged to have beheaded children.

Several leading newspapers in Britain, including the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times and The Telegraph, published details of the alleged killings of 40 children, including infants, a claim that no one, including the occupation, could prove in any way, and Hamas denied, and published several videos proving the exact opposite, through its compassionate treatment of women and children.

The Sun newspaper said on its front page: "Savages behead children in a massacre." "The enthusiasm of children was cut off in a massacre," the Times said, both of which are owned by Rupert Murdoch's UK news company.

CNN's Clarissa Ward now suggesting that #Hamas might have ́misfired' – according to the #Israeli army – a strike at the #Gaza hospital in an incident that has so far killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians. pic.twitter.com/qH2xLMy6yU

— Arwa Ibrahim (@arwaib) October 17, 2023

CBS news anchor Jeff Gloor said he had seen pictures and no one had asked him what, where and when.

This campaign appeared to be systematic within what media experts know as "black propaganda" to demonize the other, and its danger is that it prepares the recipient to accept the killing of those who are being waged against him.

Some of them forgot about it, while the rest of the professional courage prompted others to shoot, such as CNN anchor Sarah Seidner, who said she was on the air when the allegations of infant slaughter arrived, that she rushed and should have been more careful, and the rest are still texting and talking as if it were not a lie.

Mark Owen Jones, an academic who researches disinformation in the Middle East, told MEE that accounts of the murdered children were "emotional" and used in World War I propaganda campaigns to demonize enemies.

Cartoonist Steve Bell was immediately fired from the British newspaper The Guardian after 40 years at the newspaper for 'offensive drawing of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu' showing Netanyahu performing surgery on his stomach in the form of a map of the Gaza Strip with the words "Gaza residents... Leave immediately."

Despite his expulsion... pic.twitter.com/PL1jl0OKB8

— Britain in Arabic🇬🇧 (@TheUKAr) October 16, 2023

Pounding a painter's feather

Two days ago, cartoonist Steve Bell said in the British newspaper The Guardian that he had been sacked on charges of anti-Semitism after drawing a cartoon criticizing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's actions in the Gaza Strip.

The cartoon shows Netanyahu, wearing boxing gloves, outlining part of a map representing the Gaza Strip — a prelude to cutting it off — with the words "Gazans, get out now," a sign that Israel is asking Gazans to flee south before an expected ground invasion.

The journalist said he submitted the drawing to The Guardian officials, but was rejected, before the newspaper terminated a contract with him that lasted more than 40 years because of a cartoon it considered inappropriate, and could have only refused to publish the drawing - as Bell himself said - but they took the harshest measure, which was to terminate his services altogether.

But the irony – which many stopped at – is that the Western media has always provided Arabs and Muslims with "lessons" in freedom of expression, especially when it comes to cartoons or statements insulting the Prophet (peace be upon him) or Islamic sanctities in general, and their practical practices have come to reflect what is "truer than books."

Fate of 3 Muslim anchors at MSNBC channel unknown due to Hamas
attack Simaphore
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MSNBC has quietly removed 3 of its Muslim broadcasters away from the screen since the Hamas attack on Israel last Saturday amid a wave of American sympathy for Israeli victims of terrorism.

The network did not broadcast an episode scheduled for the night... pic.twitter.com/rJlP2rg4Me

— ZaidBenjamin Zaid Benjamin (@ZaidBenjamin5) October 13, 2023

Silencing by force!

However, the absence of neutrality and professionalism in the coverage of the Al-Aqsa flood operation and the unprecedented war waged by the Israeli occupation on Gaza did not stop at bias towards the Israeli narrative, and the dissemination of lies in a way that many believe is systematic, and even reached the "silencing" of some voices that do not identify with this line.

The most prominent example of this is what the American network "MSNBC" did, when it arrested 3 of its most prominent Muslim broadcasters a few days ago.

Sources confirmed that Mahdi Hassan, Ayman Mohieddin and Ali Falshi have been quietly removed from their posts as broadcasters since the Palestinian resistance attack on Israel.

Also in America, sports reporter Jackson Frank was fired from the Philly Voice news site, which he recently joined after he wrote on X's website, "I always stand in solidarity with Palestine," and the site responded with his dismissal.

🔴 PCHR Condemns the Transfer of 6 Journalists at the BBC Offices in Cairo and Beirut for Investigation and Suspension for Their Support to Palestine

⭕️Read more: https://t.co/2P0GlO8iEx pic.twitter.com/tDjkuBMNzp

— Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (@ecesr) October 15, 2023

The British BBC did not differ from that, after it decided to investigate 6 of its Arab journalists in the offices of Cairo and Beirut, in addition to stopping dealing with another independent journalist, claiming their "biased activity towards Palestine on their social media accounts."

The list of journalists referred for investigation includes: Mahmoud Shaleeb, Sally Nabil and Salma Al-Khattab, in addition to Amr Fikri, a journalist in the sports department of the Cairo office, Aya Hossam in Cairo, who was suspended by the BBC, and journalists Sanaa Khoury and Nada Abdel Samad from Lebanon.

The BBC's management has temporarily suspended Cairo office journalists until the investigation is completed.

Republican candidate Ron DeSantis warns someone against watching a screen #الجزيرة in its coverage of the Israeli bombing on the #غزة, after he was asked about the bombing of residential buildings where unarmed citizens stay #Operation_Al-Aqsa_Flood pic.twitter.com/xqA61YUVYj

— Al Jazeera (@AJArabic) October 14, 2023

It does not depend on the media, some politicians do not seem to want – apparently – only "the media of one voices", and the Republican candidate for the US presidential election, Ron DeSantis, warned against watching Al Jazeera in its coverage of the Israeli bombing of Gaza, after being asked about the bombing of residential buildings where unarmed citizens stay.

To be clear: the "terrorist" #الجهاد_الاسلامي organization is behind the failed missile launch that hit the Baptist Hospital and caused these deaths and injuries pic.twitter.com/uAYm0djefV

— Avichai Edrei (@AvichayAdraee) October 17, 2023

At the level of Israel, the matter is much larger, and it is not related to its media's handling of the war, this is expected as a party, but rather an attempt to impose its narrative on independent media, as did the spokesman for the occupation army, Avichai Adraei, who published on the platform "X" a picture from the site of Al Jazeera Net to cover the Israeli bombing on Gaza, specifically the Baptist Hospital, and wrote: "To be clear: the terrorist Islamic Jihad organization is behind the failed rocket launch that hit the Baptist Hospital and caused these deaths and injuries," modifying The headline of the news itself.

Media outlets around the globe were quick to run Hamas' headlines—without fact checking.

We now know that an Islamic Jihad rocket aimed at Israel misfired and hit the hospital in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/DzJgsbxS4i

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 17, 2023

Before that, the Israeli Defense Ministry's X account also published a reproach to the Western media for all its bias because some of these media outlets attributed the bombing of the Baptist Hospital to the occupation army, and did not take the Israeli version of the event.

The question remains: will the Western media return to its neutrality and professionalism, or at least stop claiming it?