While many of those attending were civilians, they were sent — against their will — by #Hamas to locations such as this one adjacent to a Hamas military facility, to act as human shields.
"Some of us distracted the Israelis with stones and Molotov cocktails."
Women and children are, understandably, automatically presumed to be innocent by Western observers. But in the course of the demonstrations, women and children frequently participated in the violence.
And see here one youth saying he wanted to "Rip a Jew's head off."
(Note that the @BBC documentary incorrectly rendered "Yahud" as "Israeli" when it actually means "Jew.")
Media reports have a tendency of citing claims rather than stating facts. So, for instance, it's common for journalists to say that Israel "claims" Palestinians were shooting at them.
Well, here's a Palestinian backing up the "claim."
Likewise, media reports referring in brief to "protests in Gaza" and mentioning those killed or wounded tend to neglect to include reference to the improvised explosive device (IED) threat faced by Israel.
Finally, when media coverage refers to the large number of wounded, it's easy to assume that the Israeli military shot wildly.
In reality, there was a dangerous blurring of lines between civilians and combatants, and so Israeli troops shot to halt dangerous activity.
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Do you recognise the man in the picture holding an AK-47? His name is Samed Wajjeh and the evidence points to him working as a cameraman for you in Gaza.
Do you trust him to capture the story faithfully?
Do you trust Wajjeh to point the camera in places that Hamas would find inconvenient?
Do you not think that your viewers deserve to know who you are employing?
Here's another picture of Wajjeh with a gun in hand.
Taking a picture of an Israeli flag being burned and adding a caption that states "This land has only flag" in reference to the Palestinian flag seems a lot like a call for ethnic cleansing to me.
A few nights ago, I had a fascinating conversation with a Christian Arab woman, a fellow Israeli citizen, who goes to the same tennis club as me.
I'd like to share some of the conversation with you.
Each week, we attend the same class together. And as this war rages, the tennis class we take is a bubble of calm. She's Arab and Christian, the rest of us are Jewish, and we all get along just fine. We joke and are polite. It's lovely.
This week, at the end of the class, I asked Haala (not her real name), how she's doing. As a Palestinian in Israel, it cannot be easy. And as a Christian Arab, I understood that her allegiances certainly don't lie with Islamists like Hamas.
Amid the current debate, it's vital to recall that Hamas has long used ambulances to transport fighters and ammunition.
See this video from July 22, 2014. IDF forces engaged terrorists in the Gaza Strip, killing ten gunmen. Other terrorists used an ambulance in order to escape the firefight.
The IDF did not target the ambulance that day.
Before rushing to condemn Israel, it's worth examining the facts.
Read also this evidence from the Sydney Morning Herald in 2009.
Saying that Hamas uses ambulances isn't a claim. It's a statement of fact.
Hundreds of journalists and photographers from media companies all over the world attended today the screening of a film of assorted footage showing the extent of the horrors committed by Hamas.
Footage was taken from numerous sources, including from bodycams worn by the terrorists, dashcams, from emergency rescue personnel and Israeli security service cameras.
What they saw left many of the reporters visibly shocked and disgusted.
So you've been caught spewing antisemitic hatred online:
A guide for journalists who feel they've been "silenced" by the "Zionist lobby"
(Thread 🧵)
1. Before anything, know that a healthy media is vital for a healthy democracy. We need our conversation to be vibrant and diverse, and that depends on reporters uncovering things that those in power don't want the public to know.
2. Therefore, it is important that journalists come from a range of places and reflect a range of opinions. The wider the spectrum of their views (within reason), the richer the public conversation will be.
A little under three months ago, I wrote this article.
Sick of seeing media depictions of the "political wing" as if it had no connection to Hamas's terror activities, I realised that the problem needed to be addressed by the UK government itself.
As long as the UK government draws a line between these two parts, the logic went, reporters are able to simply refer to the government's categorisations.
Removing this arbitrary division was therefore of utmost importance in ensuring accurate media coverage.
Today, UK Home Secretary Priti Patel made clear that the government regards attempting to draw boundaries between a "military and political side" as futile.