Journalists covering the Israel-Hamas war have spotlighted the extreme difficulties of covering the conflict in the face of bias and a lack of access, with a leading Palestinian reporter saying he has been shunned by his community simply for doing his job.
Speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival, Yousef Hammash, who has reported from Gaza for the likes of Channel 4, said the international media has “failed” with its bid to inform the public about the Israel-Hamas War since October 7 and give wider context.
“We’ve been exposed to one narrative and Israelis the other and that is how the international media failed in informing us,” he said. “They should have looked at it from a broader image.”
Hammash spotlighted the challenge he has faced from his own community in reporting from Gaza over the years, saying that he has spent time living in hospitals, living in his car and having to meet his children outside of his own home.
“People think they are in danger when I come and film them,” he added of working in Palestine. “We don’t have community acceptance because in the eyes of Gaza we are a legitimate target for the Israelis. That is why we are living in hospitals.”
But rather than controlling the narrative in Gaza, Hammash said Hamas has barely been “on the ground” since the devastating October 7 attack, which saw 1,200 people in Israel killed and around 240 taken hostage. Since then, the Hamas-run health ministry says 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza.
“After October 7 there is no Hamas on the ground, no law in society,” said Hammash. “People in Palestine are wishing people from Hamas dead, which wouldn’t have happened before. It is chaos.”
“Dehumanizing Palestinians systematically in the media”
Hammash was speaking alongside Gideon Levy, an award-winning journalist for Israeli outlet Haaretz who has been critical of the Israeli government. He concurred with Hammash that years of anti-Palestinian mainstream media reporting before October 7 led to a belief that the Israelis had carte blanche in Gaza once the Hamas attack took place.
“Israelis believed that Israel has the right to do whatever it wants with no moral or legal limits, no empathy, no humanity, no international law, nothing,” he said. “But October 7 didn’t come out of a blue sky – it came after years of dehumanizing Palestinians systematically in the media and after years of the media not covering the occupation.”
Lindsey Hillsum, Channel 4 News International Editor, said it is the families of the hostages who are most pushing for a ceasefire, and who are the angriest with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The families of hostages show divisions in Israeli society,” said Hillsum. “It’s not that they care about Palestinians but they want their family back and they believe strongly that a ceasefire is the best way to do that. Israel has become much ‘harder’ since October 7 and you see that with the hostage’s families.”
Elsewhere, ITV global Security News Editor Rohit Kachroo contrasted the Israel-Gaza War with Ukraine in that Ukraine had so much more clarity in who the public was backing. “At first it was almost like covering a sport event, with reports emphatically saying ‘these are the good guys, these are the bad guys’,” he said. “It felt like the equivalent of [supporting] team GB.”
Kachroo added that people have “got hung up on terminology unnecessarily” regarding Israel-Hamas, such as the use of the term “terrorist” to label Hamas, which the BBC has refused to do.
Kachroo revealed that when he first arrived in Israel, he was told he would be offered interviews instead of the BBC for this reason. “It was being used as a stick to bet the BBC with, which was really unfair,” he added. “These terms are often complicated.”
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