Israel Kills, Media Covers, Gaza Starves

Accusations of ‘Hamas propaganda’ are deflections. The real misinformation crisis is unfolding in Western newsrooms that dismiss Palestinian suffering and shield Israeli impunity.

Sky News Australia, presenter Danica De Giorgio, today in her usual daily nonsense claimed “Hamas’ propaganda is influencing the media narrative across the world.”

Her remarks weren’t only poorly misguided but a bizarre rambling framed as a warning about misinformation - and it’s symptomatic of a deeper problem - a media environment more invested in defending a criminal genocidal state under international scrutiny than in investigating its actions.

De Giorgio’s assertion Israel is “fighting for its survival on every front” comes at a time when the IDF maintains overwhelming military dominance and continues a campaign in Gaza that human rights groups—including the UN—have described as collective punishment and potentially genocidal. The idea Israel’s on the back foot, or that public opinion is being manipulated by Hamas, isn’t only comical stupidity, but willfully ignores the reality on the ground: hundreds of thousands of civilians killed, entire neighbourhoods erased, and a population left without food, water, or medicine.

What’s dismissed as “Hamas propaganda” is, in many cases, the only surviving testimony of atrocities: videos from bombed-out hospitals, images of starving children, and accounts of families buried under rubble. These aren’t fabrications—they’re desperate acts of truth-telling in the face of mass suffering.

Accusing Palestinians of manipulating global opinion isn’t new. It’s part of a long tradition in the West’s narrative where the oppressed are framed not only as aggressors but as deceivers. What’s often left unsaid is Israel maintains one of the most sophisticated international media operations in the world. Its narrative—framed around self-defence and national security—is amplified across Western outlets with minimal challenge, while Palestinian voices are sidelined or discredited.

The asymmetrical coverage isn’t merely a reflection of bias—it’s complicity. When mainstream platforms echo Israeli justifications without rigorous scrutiny, they cease to be observers and become participants in the perpetuation of harm.

There’s no doubt Hamas, as a political and military entity, plays a polarising role. But the reduction of all Palestinian resistance to terrorism serves a strategic function – delegitimising any opposition to occupation, apartheid, or displacement. Under international law, people living under military occupation have a right to resist.

To erase that right in media commentary is to deny Palestinians their humanity. Obviously, something De Giorgio lacks.

What’s also worth noting is Hamas isn’t the source of most of the disturbing imagery emerging from Gaza.

The footage of destruction, statistics of mass casualties, and testimonies of humanitarian workers are being documented by UN agencies, human rights organisations, and civilians risking their lives—not political actors.

The suggestion public sympathy for Gaza is the result of a coordinated propaganda campaign is to dismiss the scale of suffering and the power of witnessing. The real question is not why more people are questioning Israel’s actions, but why it took so long.

Israel’s hasbara strategy is built on controlling the narrative: hospitals bombed because militants were hiding there, schools destroyed because of supposed tunnels underneath, humanitarian corridors denied based on “security concerns.”

Israel’s justifications, often issued after the fact and without evidence, are repeated uncritically by Western news outlets - and when proven false, rarely if at all are they corrected.

The media has a responsibility not only to report events, but to scrutinise power. In conflicts as asymmetrical as Israel–Palestine, objectivity isn’t achieved by giving both sides equal airtime, but by weighing facts against international law, historical context, and human rights standards.

No longer is it credible to define Israel’s actions as defensive, nor to pretend Palestinian resistance is driven solely by extremism. What’s happening in Gaza isn’t a clash of equals—it’s the slow destruction of a stateless people whose right to exist is under assault.

Sky News’ segment is part of a broader pattern in throughout Western media - a reluctance to call Israeli actions what they are—war crimes—and a readiness to label Palestinian resistance as deceit. It not only distorts public understanding, but it erases the lived reality of those on the ground.

In the end, it’s not the public that’s being misled by Hamas—it’s the media itself being misled by its own unwillingness to confront the uncomfortable truth. The tragedy is that this failure doesn’t just misinform viewers—it costs lives.