In a previous article I drew attention to a number of asymmetries in the nature and media coverage of the ongoing Gaza War. In recent days there have been numerous accusations against Israel for committing war crimes, but, so far as I am aware, only one public accusation of Hamas and its affiliates. The Human Rights Watch organisation in Israel has stated that the International Criminal Court could investigate October’s unprovoked Palestinian attacks within Israel.1 What follows here, tragically, are a number of factual examples.
Evidence from Israel
On October 23rd the journalist Jotam Confino posted a short list on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) of: Hamas terrorists setting fire to a house in a kibbutz; a beheaded Israeli soldier; and a photo of dead baby and child burned beyond recognition.2 For the past few weeks, fifteen archaeologists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority have been combing and sieving the ash from the burnt houses in which families from Kibbutz Be’eri, Kfar Aza and Nir Oz were murdered, as well as the contents of the cars from the party at Kibbutz Reim. At first, the archaeologists divided into different teams, looking for evidence of missing people who were known to be in their homes at the time of the murderous attack.
the perpetrators “value death and desecrate their victims”
One of the team said they had discovered “shocking things that shouldn’t be described here”, adding that the evidence shows that the perpetrators “value death and desecrate their victims”. So far, 10 victims have been found, men, women and children, many of them deliberately burned. The bones which remain have been collected for DNA analysis in the hope of securing identification. It is thought likely that these were people previously listed as ‘missing’ and thus, presumed hostages.3
Evidence from Gaza
Video footage shown last week by the Israeli Defence Force reveals the cynical proximity of Hamas rocket launchers and launch sites, positioned just a few metres from a children’s pool, and within 20-30 metres of residential buildings, in a densely populated residential neighbourhood, underscoring their use of civilians as human shields for terrorist activities. Inside a Boy Scout organisation’s building were two multiple launch systems, the one mounted on the truck in the screenshot below, each aimed at the Ashkelon region in the north of Israel.4
In 2021 the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs presented an analysis of Gaza’s rocket policy, from which the details below illustrate the negligence of British media in omitting essential context from their coverage of the current conflict.
(Screenshot from a Hamas video reported by Janes Defence News: A-120 rockets and multiple rocket launcher)
Hamas also employs active cyber efforts to neutralize Israel’s Iron Dome system and disrupt IDF communications at high and low frequencies. According to a senior Israeli officer, Hamas “wants to infiltrate or disrupt IDF systems on the spectrum, on the web, using GPS jammers and other capabilities.” He continued, “The aim is to lower the level of accuracy of the weapons and to impair connectivity.” This, no doubt, is another cynical contribution to the tragedies of collateral damage to Gaza’s civilians.
This, no doubt, is another cynical contribution to the tragedies of collateral damage to Gaza’s civilians.
Israel demolished one particular building after warning residents to evacuate. Heeding the warning, everyone left, and no one was hurt. “The first five floors were offices, with floors six to 10 inhabited by families,” according to The Guardian. “On floor 11, the top floor, were the Gaza offices of the Associated Press and Al Jazeera.” An Israeli spokesman said, “The British paper went to great length to identify the residents on floors six to 10 and detail their fears and plight. But who inhabited the offices on the first five floors? … In them were Hamas weaponry stores and units whose purpose was to disrupt the IDF’s systems. If you looked at the roof, there were a lot of antennae, ostensibly for communication. But not all of them were. Some of them belonged to Hamas.”5
Hamas hideouts
The IDF has yet to prove to the absolute satisfaction of a watching world that Hamas held their headquarters directly beneath Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza. Yet, Israel has had, for a long time, mounting evidence that there exists a network of Hamas tunnels, command centres and rocket launchers beneath, and adjacent to, hospitals across Gaza. "Hamas systematically exploits hospitals as part of its war machine," Israel's chief military spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, told reporters. One satellite image shows rocket launchers located across the street from the Indonesian hospital. "They launch rockets on Israel 75 metres from a hospital. Why? They know precisely that if Israel will airstrike a launch pad like that, the hospital would be damaged," he said.6
In one example, just months prior to the current war, photos show Hamas launching a rocket right beside a residential zone in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Where, one wonders, were the media representatives during such events; why no mention in the UK of this, and similar, disgraceful assaults against Israel? Why no coverage of the extensive and expensive arrangements made by Israel to protect its citizens? Why no contrast with the Palestinian Islamists’ deliberate exposure of their citizens to harm? The injustice is blatant.
BBC imbalance
On its website, the BBC offers an alleged explanation of the conflict. Having elsewhere robustly defended its refusal to identify Hamas and its affiliates as ‘terrorists’, and maintaining its pride in claimed ‘impartiality’, it states (with my emphasis), “Palestinians in Gaza say Israel's restrictions and its air strikes on heavily populated areas amount to collective punishment. This year has been the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. They also complain of the restrictions and military actions being carried out there in response to deadly attacks on Israelis. These tensions could have been one of the reasons for Hamas's latest attack.”7
The lack of balance there is utterly glaring.
Whoever wrote and authorised this largely public-funded text is not disclosed, and hence, at present, is unaccountable. The lack of balance there is utterly glaring. The reported allegation of ‘collective punishment’ on heavily-populated areas totally ignores Israel’s allegation, and the empirical evidence, of the Gazan militants’ long-running policy of operating in or close to sensitive places such as residential areas and even hospitals. Yet another example was reported as I write: “Several terrorists had hidden in a building just a few dozen yards away from the Gaza City Al-Quds hospital, and when the structure was bombed, several large secondary explosions were reported, attesting to the existence of a weapons depot right next to a medical facility."8
Surely, it’s time for change?
Endnotes
1. Israel/Palestine: Videos of Hamas-Led Attacks Verified | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org) 18 Oct 2023; accessed 07 Nov 2023.
2. Jotam Confino on X: (twitter.com) 23 Oct. 2023; accessed 07 Nov 2023. Confino is Foreign Editor for Jewish News UK, and an affiliated correspondent for BBCWorld, amongst other media outlets, including the Daily Mail.
3. https://worldisraelnews.com/idf-turns-to-archaeologists-to-identify-victims-of-hamas-massacres/ 07 Nov 2023; accessed 07 Nov 2023
4. https://unitedwithisrael.org/terrorists-at-play-hamas-launch-sites-found-near-gaza-playgrounds/ 06 Nov 2023; accessed 07 Nov. 2023
5. Hamas’ Advanced Weaponry: Rockets, Artillery, Drones, Cyber (jcpa.org) 01 Aug 2021; accessed 07 Nov 2023 (NB this reference applies to the preceding 3 paragraphs).
6. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-says-it-exposed-hamas-network-beneath-next-gazas-hospitals-2023-11-05 accessed 07 Nov 2023
7. Israel Gaza war: History of the conflict explained - BBC News 03 Nov 2023; accessed 07 Nov 2023
8. Source: https://worldisraelnews.com/idf-advances-into-the-heart-of-gaza-city/ 07 Nov 2023; accessed 08 Nov 2023
