In April 2015, Ahmed Tibi, a member of Israel’s parliament from the Arab Joint List, issued a
strong statement denouncing Islamic State’s (ISIS) war crimes against Syria’s Palestinian population. “What’s happening in the Yarmouk camp is a crime against humanity,” he said, referring to the terror group’s
violent takeover of the refugee camp located near Damascus only days earlier.
“Over a thousand Palestinians were killed,” Tibi asserted.
Strikingly, his statement was ignored by virtually all media outlets outside of Israel, with the
Washington Examiner being the only major news website to mention Tibi’s comments.
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The Syrian civil war completely destroyed Yarmouk. By January 2019, only a “
few dozen families” were left in the camp, with just bombed-out buildings and rubble remaining.
After clashes between pro- and anti-Bashar al-Assad forces, the Syrian government imposed a siege on the area. Between July 2013 and February 2014, Amnesty International
recorded 194 deaths in Yarmouk, including 12 babies, six children and 41 elderly people. Two-thirds died of starvation; others died because of a lack of medical care. In the years that followed, intensifying clashes, airstrikes and shelling brought more devastation, pushing the Palestinian death toll in Yarmouk up to an estimated
1,458.
“[Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad has killed more of us today than Israel did in its latest war on Gaza,” a Palestinian refugee told
The New York Times on December 16, 2012.
However, a big data analysis by HonestReporting reveals that most prominent media outlets largely overlooked these Palestinian deaths. For example, when the Syrian regime killed 20 civilians during a
week-long aerial bombardment campaign on Yarmouk, only five articles mentioned the killed Palestinian civilians.
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Then, amidst the government assault on Yarmouk, Islamic State terrorists in April 2015 briefly
seized control of the camp. According to the Palestine Liberation Organization’s envoy to Syria, Anwar Abed al-Hadi, ISIS “executed, beheaded and raped” Palestinian residents. These
claims were corroborated by
Palestinian sources on the ground, but nevertheless got little to no attention from mainstream media.
ISIS’ crimes against Palestinians were not limited to the assault on Yarmouk. According to UNRWA, the
UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, between January and June 2016, Islamic State bombings in the vicinity of Qabr Essit — another refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus — killed at least 36 Palestinians.
An analysis by HonestReporting found that these Palestinian victims of ISIS atrocities were not mentioned once by major media outlets like
The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, Reuters, the
BBC and others.
Turning a Blind Eye to Hamas Crimes Against Palestinians
Similarly, many media outlets seem to give a free pass to crimes committed against Palestinians by Hamas, the terror organization that has ruled the Gaza Strip for over a decade. On July 24, 2021, Palestinians in the coastal enclave
called on Hamas and other armed groups to stop storing weapons in residential areas. The rare outcry followed a
large explosion in Gaza City’s Al-Zawiya market that killed one person and injured 14 others.
(full article online)
Supposed crimes committed against Palestinians by Israel are more deserving of coverage than actual atrocities perpetrated by other actors.
honestreporting.com