I joined Media Workers 4 Palestine recently, and took part in the group’s first rally outside the rather grand headquarters of the BBC in London. The Beeb, is it used to be known affectionately, has long been in the firing line for its blatantly biased, if not racist, coverage of events in Gaza and the rest of occupied Palestine. You may have noticed, for example, that Arab children have been “found dead” in Gaza, whereas in Ukraine, white European children are “killed in strikes” by Russia.
The photograph I’ve used to illustrate this point isn’t a one off. A colleague of mine in MW4Palestine has dissected a recent story about the Palestinian child Hind Rajab, whose plight in Gaza touched the heart of everyone who read her story. Hind, was just six years old when she called the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) emergency line to ask for help. That a child so young would know how to do this speaks volumes about being brought up in Palestine under a brutal occupation.
The PRCS broadcast the dramatic calls to emergency operators. It soon emerged that she was the only person left alive in a car, and had been able to survive by hiding among the dead bodies of her relatives who had all been killed by Israeli occupation forces.
PRCS paramedics were unable to enter what was an active combat zone near Al-Azhar University, south of Gaza City. They appealed to the better nature of the Israeli military and explained the situation. By this time, thanks to media savvy PRCS workers and citizen journalists, the story was hot news and had gone viral.