Palestinian Civilians "Are Ones Paying The Price"

"Israeli Tanks and Troops Launch Attack on Gaza"
A1, Sunday 1/4/09
By Isabel Kershner and Taghreed El-Khodary

One can't help but be concerned about the toll Israel's current operation has taken on the civilians of Gaza. It's a concern felt by many around the world, including, of course, Israelis. It naturally merits news coverage, which must be contextual.

One problem of recent coverage is exemplified in Taghreed El-Khodary's reporting from Gaza. In this piece, El-Khodary, while reporting Israel's recent ground and week-long air operations in Gaza, provides minimal information: Israeli measures warning civilians in Gaza; Hamas using civilian buildings, including mosques, as bases [at least citing Israeli claims].

Yet to truly inform readers, she must go deeper in describing Hamas policy. For starters, she could cite its propaganda push in charging a humanitarian crisis, when the reality is very different.

Reported in this article is that many Gaza residents, who were warned by Israel that they were in danger, responded that "they had nowhere else to go." This is indeed a problem, which is exacerbated by Hamas' refusal to build shelters. This, along with wounded Palestinians receiving treatment in Israel, goes unreported. Aside from Palestinian civilians being used as human shields, there are scores who've been executed because they are accused of being "collaborators," 35 of which were Fatah activists. Their relatives have also been killed. There is no mention of this making up the civilian death toll.

This article doesn't dwell on the predicament faced by both Israeli military planners and Gaza's civilians. Readers get little sense of Hamas' strategy, which banks on its people's proximity to militant targets to deter an Israeli response. If Israel is nonetheless forced to act, world condemnation of Israel ensues. It's a Hamas (and larger Palestinian) strategy repeated time and again.

Palestinian civilians "are the ones paying the price," is the emphatic point ending this article. Yet this is seen as almost existing in a vacuum and not a result of long-existing Hamas policy. This is the point the Times must emphatically make.