
A New York Times headline (10/31/23) erases both the perpetrators and the victims of an Israeli air attack that killed hundreds of Palestinians.
Israeli bombs rained down on the Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza on Halloween, leveling housing units and killing and wounding hundreds of Palestinians, mostly women and children. The high-powered bombs left a huge crater surrounded by ruined buildings, along with stunned, wounded civilians frantically trying to find loved ones still alive under the rubble. With an estimated 116,000 people living on half a square mile, the Jabalia camp is one of the most densely populated places on earth.
The hashtag #400Palestinians (indicating number of dead and wounded) was trending on Twitter in the morning, and users reposted footage from the scene, linked to alternative news sources, drew attention to international condemnation, expressed grief and outrage, called it a massacre and demanded the International Criminal Court intervene. Al Jazeera (10/31/23) aired live footage of the rescue operations, and its anchor interviewed doctors and analysts.
On social media, the suffering could seem overwhelming, especially when children were pulled from rubble, some dead, some still alive. Some users relied on scripture, calling the destruction biblical.
The New York Times (10/31/23) ran this headline on its Morning Update page: âPhotos Show an Explosion Has Caused Heavy Damage in Gazaâs Jabalia Neighborhood.â
The Times piece continued with the pretense of knowing nothing about the âexplosionâ other than what could be seen from pictures: âPhotographs taken on Tuesday showed at least one large crater and significant damage to buildings at the Jabalia neighborhood.â The use of âneighborhoodâ distorted every aspect of the target area: its size, density, significance and degree of damage.

Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, the Israeli official responsible for implementing government policy on the occupied West Bank, declared that âhuman animals must be treated as such.â (Times of Israel, 10/10/23).
The article went to lengths to convey that the âexplosionâ was so mysterious that it required time-delayed visual confirmation for verification: âThere was no crater in the area of the explosion on Monday, according to a satellite image of the camp by the private company Planet Labs.â The sentence was so absurd in context that it sat like a ghoulish product placement for the business/surveillance company.
Pro-genocide tropes
The Timesâ pro-genocide tropes have become recognizable over the three weeks that the paper has âreportedâ on the systematic killing of civilians in the Gaza Strip. There is the familiar discrediting of Gazaâs health ministry, with the Times saying it is âcontrolled by Hamasâ before referencing its information, that âthe damage was the result of an attack by Israel that killed and wounded âhundredsâ of people.â The Times continues to cast more doubt by claiming the information âcould not be immediately verified,â seemingly justifying this by saying âa spokesman for Israelâs military said it was looking into the reports.â
Human Rights Watch (10/27/23) has stated that the figures released by the Gaza health ministry are reliable.
In the middle of Israelâs open and admitted bombing campaign of Gaza, with the stated goals of turning it into hell and a âcity of tents,â where else could such an explosion have originated? Is it possible to bomb such a small, crowded place and not kill hundreds of civilians and bury them alive in the rubble? As UCLA professor Saree Makdisi (10/25/23) understood:
At any moment, without warning, at any time of the day or night, any apartment building in the densely populated Gaza Strip can be struck by an Israeli bomb or missile. Some of the stricken buildings simply collapse into layers of concrete pancakes, the dead and the living alike entombed in the shattered ruins.

The Daily Beast (11/4/23) spells out the Alex Jonesâlike perspective that the New York Times implicitly takes seriously in Gaza.
âWhat appeared to be bodiesâ
The use of another photograph allowed the Times to diminish the horrors of what was happening on the ground. The Times expected its readers to believe that the premier âpaper of recordâ and preeminent information source had no knowledge of the scene, and had to rely on wire service photographs:
A later photograph published by Reuters showed a Red Crescent ambulance on a street and more than 30 white sheets wrapped around what appeared to be bodies laid on the ground.
What else could they beâmannequins or sandbags made to look like victims of airstrikes? The implicationâs logic was later openly asserted by Rep. Cory Mills (RâFla.) in a conspiracy-laced allegation that dead Palestinians were actually âpaid actorsâ pretending to be killed (Daily Beast, 11/4/23).
Compare this to the words of the Al Jazeera correspondent describing the scene (Twitter, 10/31/23): âThe massacre is huge. Peoplesâ limbs are scattered around everywhere.â
Journalistsâ families wiped out

Al Jazeera (10/25/23): âTheir home was targeted in the Nuseirat camp in the center of Gaza, where they had sought refuge after being displaced by the initial bombardment in their neighborhood, following [Israeli] Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahuâs call for all civilians to move south.â
While the New York Times constructed its report from an office building, Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been dying on the ground to bear witness to the slaughter. CounterPunch (10/27/23) offered a glimpse into the soul-deadening yet essential work of journalists reporting from Gaza, as they capture
pictures in real time of the airstrikes and their victims, entire families wiped out in a flash. They tell us about the difficulties of survival for those who do not die, people trying desperately to access food, water and some energy.
âI want to die with my family,â one Palestinian journalist told CounterPunch in a text.
The family of Al Jazeeraâs Gaza bureau chief, Wael al-Dahdouh, was wiped out by an Israeli airstrike that hit the house where his wife, daughter and son were living in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza. They were killed immediately (Al Jazeera, 10/25/23).
Media obfuscation continued on CNN (11/3/23) when another Israeli bomb hit the home of Mohammad Abu Hattab, killing the Palestine TV journalist and 11 members of his family. Thirty minutes before the blast, the slain journalist had been reporting live outside of Gazaâs Nasser hospital. Even with access to the moving video report of his death, the network refused to simply identify this explosion as an Israeli airstrike, instead writing: âCNN could not independently confirm the source of the blast,â and the âPalestinian Authorityârun television networkâ offered âno evidenceâ for what âit described as an Israeli airstrike.â And the all-too-familiar âIsraeli military had no immediate comment on the incident.â
Questioning the âPalestinian Authorityârun televisionâ reporting on the Israeli killing of yet another Palestinian journalist is absurd, and sounds it under such conditions. As FAIR (10/19/23) revealed, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has charged the Israeli military with demolishing or severely damaging the homes of dozens of journalists along with 48 press centers. On-the-ground reporters continue to document the killing, even in the face of the Committee to Protect Journalists (11/7/23) announcing that with 39 media workers killed, it has been the âdeadliest month for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.â Their work has allowed global publics to gasp in horror and demand an immediate ceasefire to stop the killing. But media have systematically stifled these voices (FAIR.org, 10/24/23).
Killing in the dark

âThese buildings house hundreds of citizens,â said a spokesperson for Gazaâs interior ministry (Common Dreams, 10/31/23). âThe occupationâs air force destroyed this district with six U.S.-made bombs.â
Killing and discrediting reporters, Palestinian news stations and the health ministryâs documentation of death was not enough. On October 27, four days before the Jabalia massacre, Israel cut off all electronic communications to Gaza during that bloody assault. In âIs Gaza Burning?,â subtitled âThe Scourging of Gaza: Diary of a Genocidal War,â Jeffrey St. Clair (CounterPunch, 10/28/23) wrote:
The lights were shot out. The internet unplugged. The phone lines down. The power shut off. Gaza was alone under bombardment, some of the heaviest of the war so far⊠The missiles and tanks and commandos came in, but no words or images got out.
The only illumination was Gaza burning. The killing of civilians was hidden in the dark of night so that Israeli war crimes could not be documented in real time.
âWe are watching genocide liveâ
Independent media, without the budgets and resources of the wealthy, prestigious New York Times, but less invested in the Israeli genocide, reported on the scene of the Jabalia massacre, citing human responses, not talking points. Common Dreams (10/31/23) ran the headline âGaza Death Toll Climbs as Israeli Bombing Leaves Jabalia Refugee Camp âCompletely Destroyed.ââ It quoted Ahmad al-Kahlout, a spokesperson for Gazaâs Interior Ministry:
âThese buildings house hundreds of citizens. The occupationâs air force destroyed this district with six U.S.-made bombs,â said al-Kahlout. âIt is the latest massacre caused by Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip.â
Common Dreams writer Bret Wilkins also referred to Aicha Elbasri, a researcher at the Arab Center for Research & Policy Studies, who told Al Jazeera that âwhat we are watching today is one of the darkest hours of our time.â She added,
We are watching genocide live.
But the Times (10/31/23) was mouthing a directive from Benjamin Netanyahu himself: âIsraelâs military has repeatedly warned civilians to leave northern Gaza and head to the south of the enclave,â followed by: âBut it has also conducted bombings in the south.â The two sentences sit side by side, with the unpleasant disconnect left unaddressed.
Israelis have justified killing civilians because they havenât left northern Gaza, where the Jabalia Camp is located. It has also claimed that Hamas is preventing civilians from moving. Yet it has been no secret, documented by aid agencies, that the Israelis have targeted those in transit, an action itself that constitutes a war crime under Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions, and then bombed their convoys.
The failure to âmove to the southâ ruse to justify civilian slaughter was called out by Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch. Roth identified Israeli human rights violations and became the target of pro-Israel advocates for his efforts. Roth tweeted (10/31/23):
Netanyahu blames Hamas for âpreventing [civilians] from leaving the areas of conflictâ as if any civilian death is its fault. No! Hamas may prevent some from leaving, but many cannot or choose not to go. Israel still has a legal duty to avoid killing them.
BBC reporting mirrored NYT
The failure to identify Israel as culpable for the Jabalia bombings was caught by California State University professor Asad Abukhalil (Twitter, 10/31/23), who recognized the same strategy being employed by the BBC (10/31/23), which reported,
Israel confirms it carried out deadly airstrike on Gaza refugee camp, and says it killed a senior Hamas commander.
Abukhalil (Twitter, 10/31/23) observed:
So until Israel confirmed it, you were referring to it as a mysterious âexplosion.â You had no idea what happened.
The same word âexplosionâ looks suspiciously as if both outlets were reading from the same Israeli missive. Notice also that Israel is only identified by the BBC when accompanied by the justifying claim that a âsenior Hamas commanderâ was killed.
âThis is the tragedy of warâ

Deliberately bombing innocent civilians is âthe tragedy of war,â Israeli military spokesperson Richard Hecht told CNNâs Wolf Blitzer (10/31/23).
CNNâs Wolf Blitzer trended on Twitter on Halloween when a clip of his interview with an Israeli military spokesperson led to an interchange that exposed Israelâs unvarnished determination to kill civilians. The interchange was posted by Justin Baragona (Twitter, 10/31/23), senior media reporter for the Daily Beast:
Blitzer: You knew that there were innocent civilians in that refugee camp, right?
IDF spox: This is the tragedy of war. We told them to move south.
Blitzer: So you decided to drop the bomb anyway.
IDF spox: Weâre doing everything we can to minimize civilian deaths.
Documentary filmmaker Dan Cohen (Twitter, 10/31/23) observed:
Even Wolf Blitzer, a former AIPAC employee and Jerusalem Post reporter, canât figure out how to defend the slaughter of 400 Palestinians in a single attack.
Nathan Robinson, editor of Current Affairs, observed Blitzerâs response to the callous disregard for human life:
Wolf Blitzer is very pro-Israel, in fact used to be the editor of an AIPAC newsletter. It tells you something that Blitzer sounds totally incredulous, disbelieving, and horrified by the IDFâs spokesmanâs explanation for bombing a refugee camp.
Blitzerâs push-back was a surprising divergence from CNNâs general reporting. Two weeks earlier, CNN featured an Israeli soldier openly admitting that civilians were his target (âthe war is not just with Hamas, the war [is] with all the civiliansâ), but it went unscrutinized (Electronic Intifada, 10/15/23).
How to cover war crimes

Yousef Munayyer (BBC, 10/29/23): âItâs clearâŠthat the way this is being conducted is nowhere in line with international law.â
When the BBC (10/29/23) spoke to Yousef Munayyer, head of the Israel Palestine Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, he was forced to remind the network anchor how to engage in factual war reporting. The anchor led with breaking news that Biden and Netanyahu were just on the phone, and âthe message seems to be yet againâŠabsolute support for the military action as long as it is in line with international law. What do you make of that twin message?â
After calling it disingenuous, Yousef Munayyer said, âItâs clear to anybody who has eyes and can see whatâs happening in Gaza that the way this is being conducted is nowhere in line with international law.â Munayyer identified the attacks as âcollective punishment,â and argued that the ârate of killing civilians on the ground cannot in any way be considered in line with international law.â
Here the anchor interrupted to complain that he had just spoken to the Israeli ambassador in the studio, and he said they were conducting their operations within international law. A now-frustrated Yousef Munayyer responded:
I donât expect the Israeli ambassador to come on the BBC and say yes, we are engaging in war crimes. I expect that the journalist would push back with the facts that are observable, and ask them how they can justify the war crimes that they are committing.
Joy Reid breaks rank

Joy Reid (MSNBC, 10/31/23): âHow does bombing hospitals, churches, mosques and UN schools constitute self-defense?â
MSNBC anchor Joy Reid (10/31/23) laid out the twisted US/Israeli logic of justification, as it was becoming impossible for many any longer to spin genocide as âdefensive,â or justified by killing âa senior Hamas commander.â Over pictures of Gaza in ruins, Reid asked questions unfamiliar to other U.S. TV anchors:
How does bombing a densely populated land-strip filled 50% with children constitute self-defense? How does bombing hospitals, churches, mosques and UN schools constitute self-defense?
Well, you say, if Hamas fighters are hiding in the hospital, using the civilians as human shieldsâOK, letâs say they are. Are you arguing that flattening the hospital and killing newborns in their incubators, and their momsâŠthe doctors, nurses, and just the women and kids hiding in the hospitalâŠthatâs not a war crime? Because you would be wrong, according to international law.
The Atlantic (10/27/23) also asserted that âthe Israeli goal in Gazaâfor practical reasons, among othersâis to minimize the number of Palestinian civilians killed.â But as Caitlin Johnstone (10/31/23) pointed out:
One need only look at the fact that nearly 70% of the people killed in these airstrikes have been women and children to see immediately that Israel is doing nothing to minimize the number of civilians killed.
The charity Save the Children (10/29/23) said that âthe number of children reported killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the worldâs conflict zones since 2019.â
Mounting proof of war crimes

âAmnesty International [10/20/23] has documented unlawful Israeli attacks, including indiscriminate attacks, which caused mass civilian casualties and must be investigated as war crimes.â
Over the course of the attacks on Gaza, the UN, relief agencies and human rights organizations have been documenting Israeli war crimes. Amnesty International (10/20/23) has compiled âDamning Evidence of War Crimes as Israeli Attacks Wipe Out Entire Families in Gaza.â A brief prepared by the Center for Constitutional Rights (Consortium News, 10/27/23) argues that âthe United Statesâand U.S. citizens, including and up to the presidentâcan be held responsible for their role in furthering genocide.â
Inter Press Service (10/25/23) reported that the widespread use of U.S. weapons that killed thousands of civilians in Gaza âhas triggered accusations of war crimes against the United States.â Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), was quoted:
The American people never signed up to help Israel commit war crimes against defenseless civilians with taxpayer funded bombs and artillery.
By November 12, Israel had killed more than 11,000 Palestinians in Gaza, 4,600 of them children (Washington Post, 11/13/23); 1.6 million people have been displaced (UNRWA, 11/13/23). UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Gaza has become a âgraveyard for childrenâ (Reuters, 11/7/23). The New York Times, and other news outlets, have employed a lexicon that diminishes, denies, obscures and justifies Israeli war crimes. But no matter how many times corporate media repeat Israeli and U.S. propaganda claims that Israeli violence is defensive, or directed at Hamas, or that Hamas is to blame, or that they are following the rules of war, or working to minimize civilian casualty, that does not make it so.
Source: Mronline.org