Israel’s attacks on Gaza documented ‘minute by minute’ by global media

Thanks to international media outlets including Anadolu, it is the "first time in history" that we have a "a minute by minute" coverage of a "genocide," US-based scholar of Palestinian origin Hatim Bazian said, referring to Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip which have killed more than 21,000 people in 12 weeks.

"This is the first time in the history where we actually have a minute by minute documentation of a genocide unfolding," Prof. Hatim Bazian, who lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, told Anadolu in an exclusive interview.

"... Journalist are literally the eyes and the witnesses to the genocide, because they are documenting it. We are going to have millions and millions, if not billions, of data, minute by minute, second by second, of this unfolding genocide. We're going to have minute by minute the destruction of these apartment buildings, with civilians living in their midst and collapsing them."

Bazian said evidence presented by organizations and journalists reporting from Gaza, despite censorship and restrictions on pro-Palestinian content on social media, successfully countered biased and one-sided coverage in Western media.

Leading the American Muslims for Palestine, one of the prominent Muslim civil society groups in the US, Bazian said mainstream media in the US, relying on the Israeli narrative and stories, tends to be pro-Israel due to its dependence on the Israeli army as a news source, resulting in the spread of the Israeli narrative and overshadowing the stories of Palestinians.

"This was completely different in the social media space where actually the Palestine narrative as a result of many people joining and writing and amplifying what they were seeing coming to them directly, almost on a daily basis. So, we could see a difference between mainstream versus the social media," he added.

Bazian highlighted that this impact on social media has also exerted pressure on the US government, forcing politicians to make changes in policies and rhetoric.

- Risk of pro-Palestinian posts being considered as endorsing terrorism in the US

Speaking at the largest Muslim NGO congress in the US, organized twice a year by the Muslim American Society (MAS) and the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Bazian stressed the importance of social media in making the voice of Palestinians heard globally.

Highlighting the risk of legal repercussions under terrorism laws for posts made on social media accounts of organizations and entities classified as terrorist in the US, the academic recommended sharing content from reliable news sources instead.

Emphasizing the importance of verifying emotionally impactful content from two or three sources, Bazian said sharing misinformation should not cast a shadow over the just cause of Palestine.

- Journalists documenting this unfolding genocide, are heroes

Recalling the killing of journalists, including Anadolu's cameraman Montaser-Al Sawaf, in the ongoing Israeli onslaught, which began after the Oct. 7 Hamas offensive, Bazian said: "The journalists in essence, being witnesses to history, but in this case, not only they are witnesses to history, but history is being made over their bodies, in a literal sense ... the journalists in Gaza, the journalists who are documenting this unfolding genocide, for me they are the heroes of this whole period."