Western corporate media outlets, including the BBC, CNN, and The New York Times, have been working overtime to justify Israel’s recent assault on Lebanon, which claimed the lives of approximately 600 people in a single day. These reports have repeatedly claimed that the Israeli strikes were targeting “Hezbollah positions,” an assertion that has been widely echoed without substantial scrutiny.

Israel’s large-scale onslaught against civilian areas throughout Lebanon, which began on Monday, was covered by Western corporate media as “strikes on Hezbollah.”

CNN’s story on the first day of the assault, after around 500 people had been killed across Lebanon, was titled, “Israeli Strikes Targeting Hezbollah Kill Hundreds Across Lebanon.” The New York Times set up a live events feed labeled “Israel Strikes Hezbollah Targets in Lebanon.” Even Reuters and the Associated Press, two of the most reputable Western news providers, framed the events as an escalation from “both sides,” covering Israel’s attack on Hezbollah.

And so it begins. Deleted Israeli propaganda posts about Lebanon after deleting dozens of exposed lies about Gaza. Never believe Israel https://t.co/KFK7d8bGJr

— Hadi (@HadiNasrallah) September 23, 2024

A Reuters article published Tuesday opens with a telling lede: “An Israeli airstrike on Beirut killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Tuesday as cross-border rocket attacks by both sides increased fears of a full-fledged war in the Middle East, and Lebanon said only Washington could help end the fighting.”

Meanwhile, the BBC’s Paul Adams, reporting from northern Israel, wrote a piece titled “Cold Military Logic Takes Over in Israel-Hezbollah Conflict.” In it, Adams critiques Israel’s “high-risk strategy,” focusing on the potential consequences for Israelis. However, the article largely overlooks the devastation inflicted on Lebanon’s civilian population, instead justifying Israel’s assault while offering limited criticism of its tactics.

The BBC article reads as though it were written from an Israeli nationalist perspective, assuming that “Israel knows it can beat Hezbollah”—a claim for which no evidence exists. The most comprehensive Israeli report on the subject, a 130-page document published by Reichman University’s Institute for Counter-Terrorism after a three-year study involving over 100 Israeli senior officials, concluded that a clear victory against Hezbollah was not possible.

Israel has made no secret of the fact that it is targeting civilians, as demonstrated by its release of a CGI video showing mockups of Lebanese villages, where missiles are allegedly stored in homes. Despite this, much of the Western media has yet to acknowledge these admissions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispelled any remaining doubt when he delivered a message in English to the people of Lebanon in which he claimed, “Hezbollah has been using you as human shields.” He further stated, “They’ve placed rockets in your living rooms” and “missiles in your garage.”

Or even hundreds.

In addition to this racist orientalist pattern adopted by imperial newspapers ( @FT in the figure below ), the @nytimes is showing high sense of devotion placing the Zionist colony in a perpetual self-defence mode against a fictitious hostile group. Thus, the… https://t.co/03A6IVSXXS pic.twitter.com/lBeiQaigVO

— Mohammed Waleed محمد وليد (@alwaleed1258) September 24, 2024

These claims mirror those used to justify the ongoing violence in Gaza, where at least 41,524 people, the vast majority civilians, have been killed. When reporting on the death toll in Lebanon, outlets such as The Washington Post frame the narrative by stating, “Lebanon says” hundreds were killed in Israeli “strikes on Hezbollah,” implying a level of doubt or downplaying the civilian impact.

While the corporate media often uses language that obscures the mass civilian casualties in Lebanon, it also frequently attributes the casualty figures to the Lebanese Health Ministry. However, there are efforts, especially from outlets like the Jerusalem Post, to undermine these numbers by labeling the Lebanese Health Ministry as “Hezbollah-run.” This tactic mirrors how Western media often refers to the Palestinian death toll as coming from the “Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry,” casting doubt on the credibility of the reported figures.

The New York Times has even focused on reporting Israeli anxiety attacks despite the absence of any Israeli deaths at the time of the report. This is the same outlet that described Israel’s detonation of thousands of pagers in Lebanon last week—which killed dozens and injured thousands—as “stunning.” The Times praised the ingenuity of the attack, which resulted in significant civilian casualties. Former CIA chief Leon Panetta, however, labeled the incident an act of terrorism.

Feature photo | A man carries pictures of his relatives standing at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Saksakieh, south Lebanon, Sept. 26, 2024. Mohammed Zaatari | AP

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show ‘Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’. Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47

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