Unable to justify their army killing children in Gaza, Israelis retreat into deep denial

A wounded Palestinian child, the only surviving child of doctor Ela al-Najjar, lies in a hospital bed at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis after an Israeli airstrike hit their home

Nir Hasson writes in Haaretz  on 27 May 2025:

Israel’s mainstream media has, over the past few days, found airtime to cover the nine young al-Najjar siblings killed in their family’s Gaza home last Friday during an IDF attack.

But on Monday morning, one headline declared, “Web surfers reveal: The picture of the dead children isn’t up-to-date.” Another media outlet quoted an anonymous army source who asserted that “it cannot be determined that the children of the doctor in Gaza were killed in an IDF attack.”

The tangle of fake news can best be unraveled by stating the facts: Nine siblings – Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Gebran, Eve, Rival, Sayden, Luqman and Sidra – were, in fact, killed in their Khan Yunis home on Friday. The Israel Defense Forces told Haaretz that on the day of the attack, it was operating in the area.

Nasser Hospital, where the parents Hamdi and Alaa al-Najjar work as doctors, issued a statement Saturday. The incident was verified by the British Sky News network, which interviewed two British doctors at the hospital.  Afterwards, further details were provided by the dead children’s uncle. A Gaza rescue organization released gruesome footage of the seven small bodies, burned and torn to pieces, being recovered. The other two children are apparently buried under rubble. Major media outlets published photos of the family and the bodies a few hours after the incident.

Layers of fake news were quickly appended to the hard facts. For example, photos created with artificial intelligence of the mother with the bodies of her children were distributed. Photos of children from other families, alleged to be the children who were killed, were also circulated. These included a photo of seven children sitting and drinking juice from plastic cups, which was said to be of the al-Najjar siblings, when, in fact, it showed another family – the Abu Daka family.

The picture of those children had been circulated in mid-March after five of them – Omar, Muhammad, Hala, Sama and Qusai – were killed the night Israel first violated the cease-fire. That night, about 300 Palestinian women and children were killed in a series of bombings in the Gaza Strip. Perhaps the mainstream and social media should be forgiven – so many children and so many families have been killed, it is hard to keep all the facts straight.

Last week, the Gaza Health Ministry published the names of 16,506 children killed since the war began in October 2023. Three weeks ago, it announced that 2,200 Gazan families had been struck from the population register because all their members had been killed.

The Israeli media – some of which published the erroneous images – has been celebrating the doubts that have surfaced about the event. Instead of apologizing, they have circulated misleading images and published reports aimed at undermining the veracity of the incident. A major Israeli media outlet used a photo of the Abu Daka family to “ask questions” – that is, to cast doubt on what actually happened that day.

Public relations people call this “merchandising doubt,” but in Israeli discourse, it’s just, “I’m just asking a question.” A similar practice has been employed with the Rabin assassination, the “flat earth” theory, and Deep State conspiracies. Merchandising doubt is easy and effective because it allows one to challenge reality without denying it.

However, the media does not only represent itself – it reflects the public mood. Its coverage doesn’t fall on deaf ears. The Israeli public is seeking news that denies the bitter truth.

Lies, exaggerations and fake news have dominated Israeli discourse since October 7. To this day, millions of Israelis still believe that on that day, terrorists beheaded a baby, hung a child on a clothesline, put a baby in an oven, and removed a fetus from a pregnant woman. All of these stories have been debunked countless times, but are still regarded as factual.

The fake news, of course, doesn’t stop there. The Israeli mainstream is obsessed with the “Pallywood” conspiracy – a mashup of the words Palestine and Hollywood – which claims that the horror videos coming out of Gaza are staged. Needless to say, there is no proof for the theory.

In defense of the Israeli media, it must be acknowledged that it is difficult to cover the war in Gaza. Journalists have to write about it remotely, without access to the war zone and without the ability to hear the voices and see the sights with their own eyes. The fact that the residents of Gaza live in fear under Hamas’ reign of terror, hungry and without shelter, while exposed to severe bombings, makes the work of the journalist seeking the truth even more difficult.

Add to this the difficulties of communication in the Gaza Strip, as well as the fact that the IDF prohibits foreign journalists from entering its territory. All of this is happening at a time when AI is growing more sophisticated at an exponential rate. It is increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and fabricated images.

But all these limitations cannot excuse the media for preferring negligence and flattery over professionalism. Instead of dealing with the matter itself – the terrible disaster, the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in our name and with our hands – the media throws unanswered questions up in the air.

Denying atrocities committed in our name is not unique to Israelis. Many Palestinians deny the horrors of October 7 to this day and believe that most of those killed were hit by IDF fire and that Hamas didn’t kill civilians, only soldiers. Dr. Assaf David, of the Forum for Regional Thinking and the Van Leer Institute, sees the similarity between the two societies in this as a source of comfort.

“Denying the atrocities that your side has committed is an attempt to maintain your humanity,” he explains. “When you say, ‘There are things that my side cannot do,’ it is actually a statement saying that I cannot justify these things. It’s true that it’s a lie and that we do do these things, but denial is trying to set a moral standard.”

Israelis try to distance themselves from the atrocity through denial, instead of distancing themselves from the reality. We must tell the truth so that the atrocities stop. It is up to us.

This article is reproduced in its entirety