Since October 7, 2023, the war of images has eclipsed the war of weapons. From Gaza’s pulverised hospitals and starving infants to mass graves and desperate fathers digging through rubble, every pixel captured on a smartphone strikes deeper than a missile.These raw, unfiltered, and undeniable images have a far greater impact than any press conference or official speech. And for the first time in its history, Israel cannot delete them or drown them in propaganda.
The horrifying images of the Israeli army massacring people at aid distribution locations prompted newspaper Haaretz’s Gideon Levy to write on June 29: “Is Israel perpetrating genocide in Gaza? […] The testimonies and images emerging from Gaza don’t leave room for many questions.”
Even staunchly pro-Israel commentator and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman no longer buys into the Israeli narrative. In a May 9 op-ed, addressed to US President Donald Trump, he declared: “This Israeli government is not our ally,” clarifying that it is “behaving in ways that threaten hard-core US interests in the region”.
Once, Israel’s narrative was protected by the gates of editorial rooms and the gravity of Western guilt. But the smartphone shattered those gates. What we see now is no longer what Israel tells us — it’s what Gaza shows us.
The platforms carrying these images — TikTok, WhatsApp, Instagram, X — don’ …
