Some might be partisan, others under external pressure – but too many journalists in Israel have failed to tell the truth about Gaza

Roy Schwartz is a senior editor and op-ed contributor at Haaretz

O

ccasionally, the most important news comes from the headline that never appeared. That was the case last Friday on Israel’s Channel 13 evening news. Just a few hours earlier, a UN-backed expert body on food security released a report confirming that famine, its most severe category, has been reached in Gaza City. And yet this was not even mentioned.

While other news programmes did mention the report, it was clear they had taken its conclusions with a pinch of salt, to say the least. Aside from a few commentators who stated that there is indeed real hunger in Gaza City, the general tone was one of disbelief, seasoned with sarcasm.