(QNN) – Gaza has witnessed very tough moments in the last 48 hours, and the name of the besieged enclave has been the headline on the web since then

The escalation began on Friday, May 3, when Israeli troops killed two Palestinian protesters taking part in the weekly protests across the border. A sniper from Islamic Jihad reportedly fired back at the Israeli troops, injuring two of them. A few minutes later, a retaliatory Israeli air strike then killed two fighters from Hamas.

The resistance movements in Gaza Strip replied by launching rockets and Mortar shells towards Israeli military points and illegal settlements as an act of self-defense.

The aggression intensified when the Israeli occupation’s air forces began a series of targets against residential buildings and government offices that are located in the center of the city and surrounded by civilians’ homes, which caused the killing of Palestinian men, women, and children who were/lived around.

27 Palestinian civilians in Gaza were murdered, including six children at least, two of them were not even born; they died in their mothers’ wombs.

While the Palestinian civilians, and their homes and properties, were being shelled nonstop by Israel’s lethal force, some Western media sources were viewing the aggression with one eye and conveying manipulated news to their readers.

One of the several media outlets that have spoken with the tongue of the Israeli occupation government is New York Times. Entitled “Gaza Militants Fire 250 Rockets, and Israel Responds With Airstrikes,” the US-based newspaper sparked angry reactions over the biased title.

One of those who protested flipping the facts and equalizing the victims with the aggressors in the Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Talib.

“When will the world stop dehumanizing our Palestinian people who just want to be free?” Talib wrote on Twitter. “Headlines like this & framing it in this way just feeds into the continued lack of responsibility on Israel who unjustly oppress & target Palestinian children and families. #FreePalestine”

Commenting on the same headline, Yousef Munayyer, the Palestinian-American writer and political analyst, described New York Time’s coverage as “irresponsible and misleading” He said: “Israel shot dozens of unarmed Palestinian protestors in Gaza on Friday and killed 4 Palestinians, including two protesters, in Gaza before any projectiles were launched.”

Not so different from the New York Times, the Washington Post newspaper excelled at completely marginalizing the Palestinian victims who fell by Israel’s lethal force. On all its headlines about the aggression, one can notice, the light was shed on the Israeli casualties only as if there were no 20 Palestinians killed.

 

Remi Kanazi, a Palestinian-American poet and writer, explained on his Twitter account why such headlines cost their media outlets their credibility. “Israel is leveling buildings in Gaza. The number of projectiles bandied about is meant to shock, but they don’t paint an accurate picture,” Remi said. “A projectile isn’t a Hellfire missile or 1000 pound bomb dropped on a 10-story building.”

As such, the UK-based international news organization of Reuters joined the folk in showing the Israeli side of the story. In one of its headlines, entitled “Israeli killed and two Palestinian gunmen dead as Gaza violence persists.” Reuters made a huge mistake that one cannot turn a blind eye to it by referring to the Israeli victims as “killed” and to the Palestinian victims as “dead”, let alone the fact that the headline ignored the Palestinian civilians who were targeted by IOF. But, “dead”? Of what? A heart attack?

Let’s not forget BBC’s interesting headline: “Hostilities flare up as rockets hit Israel from Gaza.”

Unfortunately, BBC’s headline’s writer is not well-informed of what’s happening on the ground, and thus is not qualified enough to give the news to international readers. Omar Baddar, a political analyst, posted an informative thread on Twitter that should educate BBC better on how the escalation started and who flared it up.

According to government sources in Gaza, the Israeli occupation completely destroyed 130 housing units and caused partial damage to 700 others during the latest attack on the Gaza Strip.