i was flipping through the channels of the TV when i came across some horrifying pictures on Al Jazeera TV. The news reader said they had just received pictures of an israeli attack on people who were trying to reach food supplies brought by a convoy of vehicles.
The transmission was so horrifying that I, aware of Al Jazeera’s political sympathies, changed channels.
I tried to corroborate the report from CNN. That channel was, however, conducting a lengthy discussion of what the U.S Supreme Court would do in relation to court cases concerning Donald Trump. The former President would like the Supreme Court to delay the cases blah blah.
I went over to the BBC. Nothing doing there either. It was, in fact about three hours after Al Jazeera’s first report that the two major sources of news in the western world touched the story.
It occurred to me, then, that there could be only two explanations for what had happened:
1. The two Western news organisations did not trust Al Jazeera (for they surely must routinely monitor its output?) or
2. The killing of 77 people and the wounding of hundreds more (the information Aljazeera was putting out) was not “important” enough to them as to warrant speedy coverage of the sort Al Jazeera had just put out.
A depressing conclusion for me; I had always believed that the news values of the two organisations were solidly objective. In fact, I found myself getting more and more irritated, as I heard CNN reporting at length about the death of “one person” in a fire outbreak in Texas. They had resources in place to report the death of one person, but none for the deaths of 77 people?
It was easy to conclude that the “one person” who had died was of greater concern to CNN’s editors, because he was American, while the 77 were Palestinians.
But I dismissed that idea and laid the disparity in the reporting of the two incidents at the door of resources.
It is a fact that the Gaza story is occurring over a wide area, most of which is strictly under the control of the Israeli military. As is well known, the military everywhere usually regards the presence of the media in an “operational area” as a serious obstacle to their ability to achieve whatever their objective happens to be. It later became clear that what had happened was one of the worst atrocities in a war filled with terrible atrocities.
Thousands of people, forcibly moved from their homes and driven like sheep on to roads and open spaces where they had neither food, nor water, nor fuel, had seen a convoy of supplies somewhere. Filled with hunger, they had attempted to use force to get the supplies distributed. This had incited Israeli soldiers to “fire warning shots”, causing a stampede. Some people had been run over by the trucks carrying the supplies. Others had been shot by the Israeli soldiers who were trying to prevent the riot.
By mid-afternoon, the death toll was being put at over 100.
This is how CNN reported the incident on the Internet:
At least 112 people were killed and 760 injured, trying to access food aid in Gaza.
Calls are growing for an investigation into one of the worst single tragedies to occur during Israel’s war with Hamas. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops used live fire, as hungry and desperate Palestinian civilians were gathering around food aid trucks, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The incident took place amid a backdrop of vast hunger and dire poverty in the besieged enclave, where food aid has been so rare as to frequently elicit panic when it arrives.
But there are competing narra- tives surrounding the devastation that have been put forward by Israel and by eyewitnesses on the ground.
The United Nations has said an independent investigation is required to establish the facts, and nations including France have backed that call.
A convoy of at least 18 food trucks had arrived at around 4:30am on Thursday morning, sent by countries in the region including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Civilians swarmed around the newly arrived aid trucks in the hope of getting food, and Israeli forces soon started shooting, witnesses said.
The aid trucks tried to escape the area, accidentally ramming others and causing further deaths and injuries, eyewitnesses said.
Israel knows that the suffering being inflicted on the Palestinian people is shocking many people in the world, who formerly sympathised with Israel because it was a state surrounded by hostile Arab nations.
But Israeli politicians like the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, are helping to change that attitude, for they do not seem to care one whit about world opinion.
Gaza Strip Scores of Palestinians killed, hundreds more injured trying to access aid in Gaza | What we know By Rob Picheta, Abeer Salman, Jeremy Diamond and Khader Al Za’anoun, CNN, CNN Wire Friday, March 1, 2024 1:56PM Live streaming newscasts, breaking news, weather & original, local programming.
GAZA – Calls are growing for an investigation into one of the worst single tragedies to occur during Israel’s war with Hamas, after scores of Palestinians were killed trying to access food aid in Gaza City on Thursday.
At least 112 people were killed and 760 injured in an incident where Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops used live fire as hungry and desperate Palestinian civilians were gathering around food aid trucks, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza.
CNN is unable to independently confirm these numbers.
The incident took place amid a backdrop of vast hunger and dire poverty in the besieged enclave, where food aid has been so rare as to frequently elicit panic when it arrives.
But there are competing narratives surrounding the devastation that have been put forward by Israel and by eyewitnesses on the ground.
The United Nations has said an independent investigation is required to establish the facts, and nations including France have backed that call.
Here’s what we know.
What happened?
The deaths occurred amid scenes of chaos on Haroun Al Rasheed Street in western Gaza City, where crowds of hungry Palestinians had gathered for food aid.
A convoy of at least 18 food trucks arrived at around 4:30am on Thursday morning, sent by countries in the region including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to eyewitnesses.
Civilians swarmed around the newly arrived aid trucks in the hope of getting food, and Israeli forces soon started shooting, witnesses said.
The aid trucks tried to escape the area, accidentally ramming others and causing further deaths and injuries, the eyewitnesses added to CNN.
Ambulances struggled to reach those in need, because rubble was blocking the way, one of those witnesses, Ahmad Abu Al Foul told CNN.
The majority of the casualties occurred as a result of people being rammed by aid trucks trying to escape Israeli fire, according to a local journalist in Gaza, Khader Al Za’anoun.
Al Za’anoun, who was at the scene and witnessed the incident, said that while there were large crowds waiting for food to be distributed from aid trucks, the chaos and confusion that led to people being hit by the trucks only started once Israeli soldiers opened fire.
“Most of the people that were killed were rammed by the aid trucks during the chaos and while trying to escape the Israeli gunfire,” Al Za’anoun said.
What is Israel saying?
Israel offered an evolving account of the incident as the day progressed. In its first comments, the IDF said the incident began when Palestinians attempted to loot the trucks. “Early this morning, during the entry of humanitarian aid trucks into the northern Gaza Strip, Gaza residents surrounded the trucks, and looted the supplies being delivered. During the incident, dozens of Gazans were injured as a result of pushing and trampling,” the IDF told CNN.
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