"The media’s initial reporting and subsequent failure to hold Israel truly accountable highlights a disturbing trend in which Western outlets choose Israeli propaganda over the truth, often downplaying and normalising blatant violations of international law. As such, the media allows the continued dehumanisation of Palestinians and the normalisation of Israel’s atrocities, even genocide. The Nasser hospital bombing is not an aberration, it is part of a larger pattern of Israeli aggression against Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, homes, and schools. " Assal Rad

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Western media will always give Israel the benefit of propaganda

For nearly two years, Western media has normalised Israeli war crimes and dehumanised Palestinians amid Gaza’s ongoing genocide, argues Assal Rad.

Assal Rad

04 Sep, 2025

Israel attacked Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, located in the southern Gaza Strip, on August 25, 2025. Numerous casualties were reported, including journalists and healthcare workers. [GETTY]

Language is not neutral; it shapes the way we perceive global events with profound implications for public opinion. In the context of the Gaza genocide, the discourse deployed by Western media is far from objective. It often contributes to the dehumanisation of Palestinians while reinforcing pro-Israel narratives. This bias is not just about what is reported, and what is not, but also about how the story is told.

Israel’s recent bombing of Nasser hospital provides a striking illustration of how media coverage can normalise war crimes.

For nearly two years, we have witnessed a clear pattern of mainstream media coverage on Gaza. Israeli actions are often described using terms like “self-defence” or “targeting Hamas,” framing them as justified, and Israeli officials are treated as legitimate sources for the facts regarding all events

On the other hand, Palestinian sources like journalists, witnesses, and doctors are often doubted and the historical context of their systematic oppression under Israeli occupation is often absent from the reporting. This linguistic imbalance shapes how the issue of Palestinian liberation is understood, positioning Israel as the victim and Palestinians as aggressors, regardless of the power disparity between the two.

Israel as the victim

For decades, Western media has perpetuated this skewed narrative and consistently minimised Palestinian suffering while amplifying Israeli victimhood. A January 2024 report from The Intercept offered evidence of the systematic bias in major Western outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times.

The quantitative analysis revealed that emotive words like “slaughter” or “massacre” were almost exclusively used to describe Israeli civilian deaths, while adopting more neutral terms for Palestinian deaths. This imbalance is not an accident; it is a deliberate effort by the media to distort the reality of the conflict and shape public perception to diminish the scale of Israel’s violence against Palestinians.

The mainstream media’s coverage in the aftermath of Israel’s most recent horrific attack on Nasser hospital provides another egregious example of this calculated bias. The attack, which killed at least 20 people including journalists and rescue workers, was part of a broader pattern of Israeli assaults on Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, Western media outlets initially prioritised official Israeli statements that tried to soften public outrage by calling the bombing a mistake, running headlines that framed the incident as a “tragic mishap.” This form of reporting, which downplays Israeli actions and legitimises its violence, is not new. However, what made the hospital bombing particularly notable was the release of footage showing that it was hit in a double-tap attack, clearly targeting rescue workers—in broad daylight—who were responding to the initial strike.

No accountability

As footage of Israel’s direct strike on rescue workers spread across social media, fuelling public outcry, it was evident that this was not an isolated event but a deliberate targeting of journalists and medical personnel. Instead of condemning the attack as an obvious war crime, Western media echoed Israeli claims.

When Israel later stated that the hospital was targeted due to a “Hamas camera” being present—a claim so outlandish it is almost laughable—the media unquestionably reported this absurdity as justification for the attack. By accepting and reporting Israel’s explanation, the media helped reinforce the narrative that bombing hospitals was somehow acceptable in the context of “targeting Hamas” or a so-called Hamas camera. This failure to challenge Israeli claims is emblematic of how Western media regularly parrots official accounts, even when they defy basic morality and logic.

It was not until after the initial wave of coverage—which sought to absolve Israel of yet another war crime—that some outlets began to report the truth. An investigation by the New York Times contradicted Israel’s account and rationale for the attack. Later coverage from the BBC and CNN revealed that Israel had attacked Nasser hospital more than the two initial strikes originally reported.

Though the later reports refuted Israel’s explanation, they still did not employ the language of war crimes and the damage had already been done. Indeed after flooding the airwaves in the wake of the attacks with Israel’s ridiculous explanations, Israeli talking points had already become entrenched in the public discourse.

Even Reuters, which had its own reporter killed in the attack, failed to acknowledge the deliberate nature of the Israeli strikes. Instead, their headlines repeated Israeli statements asserting that journalists were not the intended targets. This was despite the overwhelming evidence that Israel has consistently targeted and killed their Palestinian colleagues in Gaza, resulting in a staggering number of casualties among the press.

Propaganda over truth

The media’s initial reporting and subsequent failure to hold Israel truly accountable highlights a disturbing trend in which Western outlets choose Israeli propaganda over the truth, often downplaying and normalising blatant violations of international law. As such, the media allows the continued dehumanisation of Palestinians and the normalisation of Israel’s atrocities, even genocide.

The Nasser hospital bombing is not an aberration, it is part of a larger pattern of Israeli aggression against Gaza’s civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, homes, and schools. These attacks are plainly war crimes under international law. Yet, Western media’s refusal to hold Israel accountable or even to call their actions by their appropriate name is symptomatic of a deeper problem of how Israel’s oppression of Palestinians has been understood in the Western world.

Rather than immediately challenging Israel’s account of the Nasser hospital bombing and contextualising it within the larger story of the Gaza genocide, legacy media repeated Israeli talking points, helping to normalise the attack as a regrettable but inevitable part of “war.” This ongoing bias in Western media coverage of Gaza is not only about misreporting. It is also about complicity.

When the media acts as stenographers for genocidal states instead of defenders of truth, they become enablers of that very violence. By normalising war crimes, Western media is culpable for them.

 Assal Rad is a scholar of Modern Middle Eastern history and Nonresident Fellow at Arab Center DC. She received her PhD at the University of California, Irvine.

Follow Assal on Twitter/X: @assalrad

https://www.newarab.com/opinion/western-media-still-values-israeli-lies-over-palestinian-lives

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