“Legal scholars tend to sharpen their pens after the smell of death has dissipated and moral clarity is no longer urgent.”

This is a line from an article penned by Palestinian human rights lawyer Rabea Eghbariah for the Harvard Law Review as he explored an “inertia of legal academia” in examining Israel’s assault on Gaza within the “legal framework” of “genocide”.

He pointed to leading authorities in the field, including Israeli genocide expert Omer Bartov, who concluded in an opinion essay in The New York Times that statements made by the top-ranking officials in Israel “could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent”.

This includes former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s description of Palestinians as “human animals” when he called for a “complete siege” of the enclave, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling soldiers to “remember what Amalek has done to you”, referring to the biblical people of Amalekites – a people perceived in whole as an enemy to be destroyed.

Both men are wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Eghbariah’s point was that, just like Western leaders are reluctant to use the word to describe what is taking place in Gaza, much of the scholarly world also appears to be waiting for international courts to decide on the matter before they act. 

“It is much easier to consider genocide in the past tense rather than contend with it in the present,” he wrote in the piece. His point was hammered home when, in an extremely rare move, the editors of the law review pulled his article before publication, according to the US publication The Intercept. 

But it is not just in academia. There are serious concerns about how the situation in Gaza is being more widely framed in Western media. And this goes for Irish media too. 

As a whole, Western media has broadly painted an inaccurate picture of the tragic events unfolding in real-time in Gaza. 

This concern was very articulately laid out by Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, during a whirlwind tour of Ireland over three days last month, just days after Israel breached the ceasefire deal.

She met with the President and opposition parties – but, notably, not the Taoiseach or Tánaiste – as well as trade unions, activists and civil society groups, and spoke at several events at Irish universities. 

While here, she took aim at the State’s continued trade with Israel, including the export of dual-use items, the Central Bank’s role in facilitating the sale of Israeli “war bonds”, and the unchecked overflight of weapons from the US to Israel, among other issues. 

The media was not the main focus of her ire, but her brief exchange with reporters here was undoubtedly memorable. This is clear from her interview on Morning Ireland, where she stood up and left the studio immediately as the interview was ending. 

She was particularly piqued by the decision of the presenter, Gavin Jennings, to read out a statement from an advocacy group, the American Jewish Committee, that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “an act of self-defence”.

This, Jennings said, was “simply put” to Albanese “as a counterpoint”.  

This was, Albanese wrote on social media, the first time that she had ever “quit a studio literally in search of oxygen”, baffled as to why the interview did not focus on the thousands of children killed.

Holding a brief press conference with Irish media later that day, the interview was still clearly fresh in Albanese’s mind. She did not mince her words for the reporters in attendance, this one included. 

“This is a country where I hear the media starting the discussion premised upon what the [Israel Defense Forces] says. Are you serious, after 50,000 people killed?” she asked.

“Do you do the same, by the way, when you talk about Ukraine and Russia? Do you start by saying what Russian generals and the president of Russia say? No, so why do we apply double standards to Palestine? 

“I know why. Because you’re scared. You’re scared of doing the right thing because the right thing comes with a price, and I stand proud with it because I take that price as the price of humanity, a price that I can bear, and you should do the same.”

Much as she did toward the Irish State during her visit, Albanese held a mirror up to the media to ask itself if it was accurately reporting events in Gaza. The clear answer, like for much of the Western media, is no. 

An “inquiry into the role of Western media”

Albanese has constantly articulated, in UN reports and media interviews, the responsibilities of all UN member states to uphold international law in the face of grievous breaches by Israeli forces. 

In the past few months alone, Israel’s attacks on women’s healthcare in Gaza were described as “genocidal acts” in a UN report. Another recent UN report concluded that there is a “concerted policy to destroy the health-care system of Gaza”, including deliberately killing medical personnel and targeting medical vehicles, which are war crimes.

There are also documented cases of the killing of journalists, first responders and UN staff, as well as the blockage of aid into the strip – all clearly defined as war crimes or crimes against humanity. 

Albanese said she was adamant that there will be “an inquiry into the role of Western media” over its role in the “normalisation of what Israel has done”. 

This is seen repeatedly in articles downplaying the severity of Israel’s actions, couching breaches of international law by parroting IDF justification for its actions, or downright excluding details of the perpetrator in the headline or core narrative.

It is a basic tenet of news reporting, dating back over a century, that an article leads with what is referred to as Rudyard Kipling’s “six honest serving men”: the who, what, when, where, why and how of a story, ie the six basic questions to ask when gathering information.

When it comes to reporting on Gaza and the West Bank, the who, why and how are often missing in Western media. 

A recent example comes from the BBC, following the killing in late March of eight medics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, part of the Red Cross system, six first responders from the Civil Defence in Gaza and a UN employee, as reported by the International Committee of the Red Cross and the UN.

They were found by staff of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – known as Ocha – in a mass grave near Rafah. 

According to Jonathan Whittall, the Ocha chief, the grave was marked with the emergency light from one of the crushed ambulances in which they arrived in the area on March 23 in the hope of rescuing individuals injured in an Israeli attack. 

Whittall said the only survivor of the massacre informed Ocha that Israeli forces killed both of the other crew in his ambulance. All were killed in their uniforms. A Red Crescent spokesperson also said that one paramedic had their hands tied together. 

A forensic doctor who examined five of the bodies told The Guardian that he found evidence of close-range execution-style killing. The locations of the bullet wounds, he said, were “specific and intentional”. 

The original headline in the BBC article read: “Red Cross outraged over killing of eight medics in Gaza”. There is no mention of Israel or the IDF, the first mention of which only comes in the fourth paragraph.

This was changed the next day to reflect that the medics were killed by Israeli forces in both the headline and the first line of the article. 

The BBC will argue that the change was not a result of external or internal pressure – a Drop Site News investigation last December revealed internal concerns over the broadcaster’s objectivity in reporting on Palestine – but that they were working with the information they had at the time or that the Israeli military had yet to respond to requests for comment to confirm that they were the responsible party. 

The updated BBC article still carries the IDF’s take on events – that “terrorists” were hiding among the rescue workers – even though this is easily contradicted, as so often IDF statements are, by the evidence.

In this case, the IDF spokesperson claimed, without evidence, that the IDF targeted a specific Hamas operative who took part in the October 7 massacre, along with eight others from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. None of those recovered from the mass grave by Ocha match up with the IDF claims. 

In addition, they also claimed that the ambulances did not have their lights on and were suspiciously approaching the area. Video footage since obtained from the phone of one of the killed workers – found in the grave shot in the head – completely refutes this, with the vehicles using their emergency lights and the first responders wearing their distinctive high-viz jackets.

Despite the clear evidence, many leading publications have published articles with headlines couching how the video cuts apart Israel’s defence of its action. This includes the BBC, and Ireland’s own RTÉ, both of which said the video footage “appears to contradict” the Israeli account.

CNN said that the video “casts doubt” on Israel’s explanation for its actions, while the New York Times, the first major Western publication to release the video footage, carried a follow-up article with the headline: “Israel Says Its Account of Rescue Workers Killed in Gaza Was Partly ‘Mistaken’.”

The Irish media, too, is guilty of using inaccurate copy on Gaza more broadly. In a recent article on Israel’s announcement of plans to take over parts of Gaza, The Irish Times carried wire copy from Reuters with very obviously inaccurate framing on the end of the ceasefire. 

According to the article, the ceasefire was not broken by Israel. Instead, it had come to a “conclusion” as Israel resumed air strikes and sent in ground troops “after two months of relative calm”. The article fails to mention that Israeli forces killed at least 100 Palestinians during the short period that the ceasefire was in effect from January 19 to March 6, 2025, according to the UN.

This is widely reminiscent of an article in The Guardian on March 15, just days before the ceasefire was officially broken. It stated, in the very same sentence, that both sides had “refrained from returning to war” and that, also, “Israel has conducted an intensifying series of airstrikes in Gaza that have killed dozens”. 

In the next paragraph, the IDF’s reasons for killing these individuals are listed out, unquestioned. Do we really need to hear from the aggressor every time to tell us that it has committed another war crime?

Does the media really need to give the IDF’s voice equal balance when they have been proved over and over again to feed the media with false information and as their country’s leader is wanted in The Hague for war crimes?

Reporters have a responsibility – a duty – to uphold the principles of fair balance in reporting. But this should never equate to bothsidesism. Not all sides are equal. Reporting on Gaza is arguably the most egregious example of this in the history of the profession. 

This is something that Francesca Albanese stressed to reporters during her Irish tour. “You, the media, have a critical role,” she said. 

“With every question you ask or you do not ask, every news piece you choose to cover, every person you give a voice to, checked or unchecked, you are playing a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of this catastrophic crime. This is normalising everything that Israel does.”

The war framing

One issue she stressed was the framing of what is happening as a war, an issue the UN expert has contended with during media interviews. 

The terminology used, she said, continues to make it appear that some sort of symmetrical warfare is ongoing between two warring nations of equal might, instead of between an occupying state and an occupied people, as a landmark advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice outlined in July 2024. 

“Was there a war between apartheid South Africa and the black South Africans who tried to resist their oppression?” she asked Irish reporters rhetorically. “There are no more universities [in Gaza], the hospital infrastructure is decimated. Seventy per cent of the homes [destroyed]. Imagine Dublin destroyed, 70 per cent, do you call it a war?”

In February, a joint analysis from the UN, the EU and the World Bank put the reconstruction and recovery costs at $53 billion. That is roughly €49 billion over the next decade, of which €18.5 billion is needed in the first three years of recovery – whenever that is – to restore essential services, rebuild infrastructure, and support economic recovery.

To put this in comparable terms for an Irish audience, €49 billion is half Ireland’s total annual budget. This is the scale of destruction caused by Israel in the enclave half the size of Louth, largely with weapons from the US, the UK, Germany and other EU partners.

“These days are very dark for the Palestinians. Don’t call it a return to war,” Albanese told reporters, referring to the restarting of Israeli bombing, marking the fall of the ceasefire.

Just hours after this briefing, she was interviewed on Prime Time where presenter Fran McNulty did just that. McNulty, who has covered events from Tel Aviv, framed events in the context of an ongoing war between two sides. When challenged by Albanese on this framing, McNulty doubled down and asked about “how much blame” Hamas needs to take for what is happening as there “are two sides in every war”. 

So, what were the events unfolding in the days preceding this interview on the national broadcaster, and the days after it? 

Days before Albanese arrived in Ireland, on March 18, Israel broke the fragile truce and launched some of the most intense bombings in the last year. Over 500 people were killed, including upwards of 200 children. Israel Defense Minister Katz said “the gates of hell will open” if hostages were not returned. It appears this has been done. 

In the two weeks after Albanese left Ireland, as well as killing dozens more civilians, Israeli forces hit the Red Cross building in Rafah and Nasser Hospital in strikes; struck a UN compound, killing staff; targeted and killed several journalists; hit a UNRWA health clinic in Jabalya; and, as mentioned above, killed first responders and medical workers.

The facts on the ground make it difficult to see how what is happening fits anywhere within the narrative of a normal “war” environment. 

This is clearly shown in the number of children killed to date, although many Western media publishers have a caveat for this, too.

The Hamas-run caveat

The latest list of those killed under Israeli attack was released by the health ministry in Gaza in late March. It lists over 50,000 names, of which the first 876 are under one year of age. Babies. 

In total, 14,584 are under the age of 16, meaning that just under one-third of the 50,082 Palestinians listed as killed in direct military attacks to date are children.

It is at this point that I am supposed to caveat the figures as coming from the “Hamas-run” health ministry, as many publications continue to do, including The Irish Times in an article on Albanese’s visit.

What is rarely mentioned after this caveat, essentially telling the reader to take the numbers with a pinch of salt, is that the data from the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza are widely accepted by both the wider UN apparatus and the WHO, its specialised health agency.

UNICEF, the UN’s child agency, also confirms that, after nearly 18 months, over 15,000 children have been killed, with 34,000 injured, and one million displaced and deprived of their right to basic services. 

Many have life-altering injuries, including loss of limbs. In December, UN deputy chief Amina Mohammed said Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world. Many undergo surgery without anaesthesia as Israel blocks aid from entering the strip. 

Whether there are some inaccuracies in the overall figures or not, the scale of women and children killed is far too high, whatever percentage of the total death toll it is. This is where the media should place its attention, not on the need for caveats. 

Prime Time did give time to hear the scale of the impact last week from trauma and vascular surgeon Morgan McMonagle, who spoke about working in Gaza treating victims of Israeli strikes, many of whom were children. But it still shouldn’t take a familiar Irish voice to take the facts from the ground at face value.

Solidarity in all the wrong places

When Albanese challenged the framing of her Morning Ireland interview during her press conference here, one reporter made a point to defend the Irish media writ large. 

This is often the response from reporters when other journalists are challenged publicly over their work. It’s a natural response. At least, it is when it comes to other Irish reporters.

The same solidarity, however, appears to be lacking from the majority of media when it comes to the unprecedented killing of Palestinian journalists, the very eyes and ears of the Western world over the last 18 months as Israel blocks international media from entering the strip.

Since October 2023, at least 168 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed by Israeli forces, according to the International Federation of Journalists. An Al Jazeera investigation from December 2024 puts the figure at 222, including support personnel such as translators, drivers and fixers.

A report out this month from Brown University’s Costs of War project describes Gaza as a “news graveyard” where Israel has killed more journalists than those killed in both World Wars, Vietnam, the Balkans, and Afghanistan combined. 

Just this Monday, Israel hit a tent housing reporters near Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Seven reporters were injured and two killed. Video footage of the aftermath of the strike shows Ahmed Mansour, a journalist for Palestine Today, sitting in a chair being burned alive as people desperately try to put out the flames engulfing his body.

Another recent victim was Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent, killed by a drone strike on his car on March 24. Western media has been tellingly silent on his killing and that of other reporters barely reported in wide-audience publications. 

The Israeli military has openly admitted that Shabat was “eliminated by the IDF”, having previously named him among six Al Jazeera reporters with links to militant groups.

They have yet to produce any credible evidence. An investigation from Reporters Without Borders found that the documents produced by the IDF “severely lacked proof these journalists were affiliated with the military and in no way granted a licence to kill”.

It doesn’t matter now. Another colleague is gone.

Shabat knew he was a target. Yet, when the ceasefire broke, days after seeing his mother for the first time in 15 months, he put his press vest back on to go and document the return of destruction to his homeland.

In a final message to the public, written in case he was killed in the line of duty, Shabat asked the world to keep speaking about Gaza. 

“For [the] past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury,” he said. “Do not let the world look away.”

This is the very least that Western reporters should be doing. And to do it accurately, based on the overwhelming evidence on the ground. 

It is beyond time to sharpen our pens.