Skip to main content

Israel's media at war

Israeli media scholars Tamar Liebes and Zohar Kampf point to a dramatic change in the coverage of conflicts in the West: from focusing on politicians and generals to coverage of human stories of enemies and victims.
Paul Hansen of Sweden, a photographer working for the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, poses holding his picture that won the World Press Photo of the year for 2012, at Dagens Nyheter's office in Stockholm February 15, 2013. The photograph, which Hansen took on November 20, 2012, shows a group of men carrying the bodies of two dead children, who were killed in an Israeli missile strike on Gaza City, and won the top World Press Photo prize on Friday.        REUTERS/Fredrik Sandberg/Scanpix    (SWEDEN - Tags: ME
Read in 

One of the most powerful media moments that has been etched in the consciousness of the Israeli public, from the days of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008, was an especially sympathetic interview by Yonit Levi, the news anchor of Channel 2, with Ahmed Sanur, a welding shop owner in Gaza. 

At the ruins of the welding shop, destroyed in the extensive bombings of the Israeli air force, Sanur spoke in an anguished voice about his son who was killed in the same attack. Levi, known for a meticulous and unemotional presenting style, didn’t succeed this time in remaining apathetic. She asked Sanur how he felt after losing his son, and if he had a message for the Israelis. Sanur sobbed and almost begged that the war would stop. At least a million Israelis watched this interview, hundreds of thousands of them, residents of the south, were besieged in shelters while under an unremitting onslaught of rockets and shells from Gaza. 

Access the Middle East news and analysis you can trust

Join our community of Middle East readers to experience all of Al-Monitor, including 24/7 news, analyses, memos, reports and newsletters.

Subscribe

Only $100 per year.