The Rotten Partnership Between the US Media and the Israeli Military
Séamus Malekafzali | Even as their colleagues in Gaza are deliberately massacred, Western journalists continue to play along with the IDF. | On July 31, Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul was murdered. He had been reporting from the Al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza, covering the reaction from residents to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier that same morning. While he was with his cameraman Rami al-Rifi, their car was directly targeted in a strike by the Israel Defense Forces. Video soon emerged of the two journalists dead in the vehicle. The force of the blast had decapitated al-Ghoul. His press vest was still clearly visible. ■ Al-Ghoul and al-Rifi were just two of over 160 journalists who have been killed while covering the war in Gaza, by far the deadliest conflict for journalists in recorded history. But while Israel usually leaves their strikes on journalists unacknowledged, the IDF has instead openly gloated about killing al-Ghoul. In a statement, the IDF accused al-Ghoul of being a Hamas fighter–specifically, a member of the Nukhba special ops force. (No evidence was provided for this assertion.) Moreover, his filming of Hamas operations against IDF troops—otherwise known as doing his job as a correspondent for a major television network—was specifically detailed as the reasoning behind his murder.