
Wed Sep 25 05:51:01 UTC 2024: ## Israeli Media Focuses on Domestic Suffering, Downplays Palestinian Casualties in Gaza War
**TEL AVIV, ISRAEL** – Since the outbreak of war in Gaza on October 7th, Israeli television channels have been heavily focused on the domestic impact of the conflict, largely neglecting the human cost in Gaza, according to media analysts.
While nightly news broadcasts detail military operations and the trauma experienced by Israelis following Hamas’s surprise attack, the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli bombardment is largely absent.
“Israeli media, from Channel 11 to 14, do not show images of human suffering in Gaza,” states The Seventh Eye, an Israeli news website specializing in media analysis. They note that while viewers see bombed buildings and rubble, individual stories of Palestinians are absent.
This pattern, according to Jerome Bourdon, a media sociologist at Tel Aviv University, is not new. Palestinian voices have been consistently marginalized in Israeli media, even prior to the current conflict.
The stark discrepancy in coverage is highlighted by the reporting of casualties. Israeli media readily cites the 1,205 deaths on the Israeli side, primarily civilians, but largely ignores the 41,467 Palestinian deaths, a figure acknowledged as reliable by the UN but largely absent from Israeli news.
While some outlets, like the left-leaning Haaretz and +972, have investigated allegations of torture and the use of AI in targeting by Israeli soldiers, their audience remains limited.
The situation has led to accusations of bias and a lack of accountability for alleged Israeli military abuses. For example, Channel 12, while covering the arrest of soldiers for suspected sexual assault of a Palestinian detainee, sparked debate on whether torture and sodomy of “terrorists” could be considered legitimate.
This focus on Israel’s own suffering, critics argue, presents a distorted picture of the conflict and shields the public from the full human cost of the war.
**Note:** The final paragraph of the provided text was unrelated to the Gaza conflict and was excluded from the news article.