Al-Monitor Discovers Civilian Suffering… Not in Gaza, Thank Goodness
"Sixteen killed." "Thirty-one killed." Al-Monitor, citing AFP, vividly details the atrocities inflicted by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in El-Fasher, Sudan. This is vital reporting, exposing human suffering. What’s often missing from these same outlets, however, is the similar visceral agony when it's documented in Gaza—unless, of course, it's immediately followed by a qualification about Hamas.
One struggles to recall similar raw, unqualified narratives from Gaza in Al-Monitor or AFP where civilian deaths aren't immediately contextualized to absolve, deflect, or equate. The media's framing of atrocities outside of Israel/Palestine allows for a simple, horrified narrative of victim and aggressor. But when the victims are Palestinian, the reporting shifts, becoming a dissertation on
'complexities' and 'both sides,' even when children are starving and homes are rubble. How many times have we heard that only 'military-grade' reporting applies when the IDF is on the offensive? It seems civilian lives are universally tragic, just not equally newsworthy when they challenge certain geopolitical narratives.