The media ignores Hamas’ holding of hostages and Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel

By Hugh Fitzgerald, Frontpage Magazine

There is much about the war against Israel to which the mainstream media pays scant attention.

That journalistic failure is discussed here: “What mainstream media isn’t reporting during the Israel-Hamas war – opinion,” by Andrea Samuels, Jerusalem Post, May 24, 2024:

In general, from watching MSM [mainstream media], we have the impression that the IDF is killing innocent children, unopposed, and there is no mention of the ongoing rocket attacks on Israel apart from the Iranian attack which was portrayed as a harmless gesture,” explained Paul Martin Gurnett from Britain….

The rocket attacks launched by Hamas into southern Israel, and by Hezbollah into northern Israel, are seldom mentioned on the mainstream media.

But we are shown people in Gaza running for cover, just before the IDF’s airstrikes hit, and then the aftermath of bloody corpses who, we are assured — no evidence need be presented — are almost entirely those of “women and children.”

You can go for days without the Israeli hostages being mentioned even once on the news in North America.

In Europe the lack of coverage is even more pronounced.

They are mentioned when the IDF finds a few more murdered hostages, usually in a tunnel, like the three dead Israelis just found by the IDF on March 23 under the Jabaliya camp.

And when the IDF releases a video taken by Hamas operatives of hostages as they were being captured, and manhandled, a minute or two of that will be shown on the mainstream media. But that’s about it.

When have you read or heard anything about the tens of thousands of Israelis who have had to leave their homes in northern Israel because of Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks? Never? Well, almost never.

Hezbollah has been joined in southern Lebanon by Hamas volunteers, eager to join their Shi’a Muslim rivals in order to fight the Zionists.

But little is reported about those Hamas operatives launching their own attacks from Lebanon into Israel.

The mainstream media keeps telling us about how more than 1.2 million people in Gaza were initially displaced from the north, and that now, about one million have been evacuated from their temporary refuges in Rafah, forced to flee north, to Al-Mawasi and Khan Younis.

IDF CALLS ON GAZANS TO EVACUATE RAFAH AHEAD OF OPERATION
Did you hear a word from the mainstream media about this barrage from Lebanon? You did not.

Nor have there been more than a handful of mentions in the mainstream media about the 60,000 Israelis in the north who have been forced to flee their homes, and for seven months have been unable to return.

Another tragedy about which many outside Israel are unaware is the deaths of soldiers on the frontlines both in Gaza, the North, and the West Bank.

Men, some as young as 19, as well as reservists in their 20s, 30s, and even 40s, are making the ultimate sacrifice to keep us safe, often leaving behind young children who will grow up without a father….

These young men, and some women, have died in defense of their people and their state.

Many were native sabras; others made aliyah with their families to Israel from all over the world. Some came alone.

Their stories — the ones that have been told in the Israeli media — are amazing. But the mainstream media is not interested in human interest stories from the Israeli side.

That would humanize the IDF fighters, might even make them sympathetic. And that would never do.

More than a thousand Israeli soldiers and civilians have been seriously wounded in the Gaza War, meaning that they will need years of rehabilitation, as well as having to come to terms with living as amputees.

Don’t look to the BBC, or the French Canal Cinq, or Deutsche Welle, or The New York Times, or The Washington Post, for news about the 60,000 Israelis who have had to leave their homes in the north and the 40,000 who have had to do the same in southern Israel because of rocket barrages from Hamas and Hezbollah.

Don’t look there for news about the eight field hospitals the IDF has built in Gaza.

Don’t expect to hear much about Israel’s young soldiers dying in Gaza in defense of their country.

You will not read heartbreaking stories about those killed and their parents mourning; such stories are reserved for Palestinians alone.