The genocide is livestreamed. Unfolding before our eyes, on the screens of our smartphones. From frontline journalists to IDF soldiers on the ground, social media is flooded with evidence: tents for displaced families burning through the night, desecrated bodies of Palestinians hanging upside down, kilometre-long queues for a single sack of flour, where those who finally reach the front are gunned down by snipers; it is a grim, real-world echo of Squid Game.
Israel is not defending itself in Gaza. It is exercising necropolitics. Not only through direct military killings, but by creating the very conditions that lead to death: destroying 92% of homes and 94% of hospitals; sealing entry and exit points to the Strip; restricting food and medicine supply; declaring “safe zones” and “death zones”, but ignoring the distinction; forcing mass displacement while bombing refugee camps; erasing families, flattening cities, razing schools and universities, silencing journalists. This is a systematic assault on the social fabric and collective identity of Palestinians – an attempt at ethnic cleansing.
All the above are documented in the latest B’Tselem report, tellingly titled Our Genocide (28/7/2025). Evidence like this has already been submitted to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to support South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. The ICJ has issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes.
And yet, for some, the famine in Gaza and the mountain of evidence are simply “fake news”. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has warned that all three famine criteria are now met: collapsing food consumption, acute malnutrition, and deaths caused by both. Even within Israel, voices are rising against the government as the famine claims the lives of their own hostages.
Leading Jewish voices denouncing genocide
Israeli human rights NGOs have accused Netanyahu’s government of genocide. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert condemned Israel’s actions and spoke war crimes. Articles published in major Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, accuse the government of using famine as a political weapon, while others equate the denial of the famine in Gaza with the denial of the Holocaust. Israel’s most renowned living author, David Grossman, asked in La Repubblica:
How did we come to be accused of genocide? Just uttering that word – ‘genocide’ – in reference to Israel, to the Jewish people, that alone, the fact that this association can even be made, should be enough to tell us that something very wrong is happening to us.
Grossman continues with despair: The association of the words ‘Israel’ and ‘hunger’ – especially when this comes from our own history, from our supposed sensitivity to human suffering, from the moral responsibility we’ve always claimed to hold toward every human being, not just toward Jews – this is devastating.
Equally striking is an open letter by five Israeli university presidents to Netanyahu: “As a nation shaped by the trauma of the Holocaust, we must uphold our moral duty and do everything possible to prevent deliberate, indiscriminate harm to civilians”.
What interests does publishing fake news in Cyprus serve?
If prominent Jewish voices, NGOs, and leaders – in whose name genocide is being carried out, as they say – openly oppose Israel’s war on Gaza, why do some here in Cyprus strive to normalise Israel’s narrative? This paradox raises three urgent concerns – not just for columnists, but for the media organisations that provide a platform to reactionary voices and fake news, as well as the Cyprus Media Ethics Committee that is supposed to monitor whether their code of conduct is being respected.
First, to columnists: Why such zeal in defending a foreign state? Why echo, word for word, Israel’s official talking points – “the only democracy in the Middle East,” “international organisations fabricate data,” “Palestinians are inherently terrorists”? Why brand any criticism of Israel as antisemitism or “fake news” (what Trump does basically)? Is this merely ideological fervour, or are other interests involved? If columnists truly respect their readership, they should be transparent about the motives that inform their positions.
Second, to media organisations: In a pluralist journalistic model, a diversity of voices is essential. But democracy is not the absence of limits – it is, on the contrary, their very presence. Hiding behind “freedom of speech” to normalise extreme falsehoods that contradict expert data is dangerous. Media outlets must be accountable for what they publish, especially when it spreads hate, serves foreign interests, or disguises propaganda as “personal opinion”. The parallel with Trump’s MAGA movement is clear: fake news wrapped in claims of “democratic opinion,” critics branded as enemies. The similarities between MAGA and Netanyahu’s far-right coalition were highlighted by another leading Jewish voice, New Yorker’s editor David Remnick in his recent article “Israel’s Zones of Denial”.
Third, to the Cyprus Media Ethics Committee: UN reports, ICJ rulings, and Israeli NGOs all confirm grave violations of international law. Israel not only commits these crimes but undermines the UN by destroying infrastructure and ridiculing its authority. Systematic denial of such evidence is not mere opinion – it is deliberate disinformation. Does the committee see this? Or is it waiting passively for a complaint?
We live in an era when citizens are increasingly disillusioned with political institutions and authorities, politicians, and the media. A common argument one hears in everyday discussions as that ‘the elites do not represent our interests’. If ‘the elites’ wish to keep the public’s trust they must at least try to understand what the public wants. Public opinion is gradually turning against the Israeli narrative – and likewise against those who support it within and outside Israel, including political leaders and journalists in Cyprus. Media organisations wishing to keep the public’s trust must at least ensure the accuracy and integrity of the content they produce. This is not censorship; it is accountability. The quality of public debate – and the health of democracy – depends on it.
*Lecturer in Political Communication, Cyprus University of Technology
Sources:
- Nir Hasson, Yaniv Kubovich, Bar Peleg (27/6/2025) ‘It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-06-27/ty-article-magazine/.premium/idf-soldiers-ordered-to-shoot-deliberately-at-unarmed-gazans-waiting-for-humanitarian-aid/00000197-ad8e-de01-a39f-ffbe33780000
- United Nations (22/4/2025) Gaza: Destruction of vital lifting gear halts search for thousands buried under rubble, https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162491#:~:text=The%20UN%20estimates%20that%20approximately,the%20start%20of%20the%20conflict.
- World Health Organisation (22/5/2025) Health System at Breaking Point, https://www.who.int/news/item/22-05-2025-health-system-at-breaking-point-as-hostilities-further-intensify–who-warns
- B’tselem (28/7/2025) Our Genocide https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide
- IPC (7/2025) IPC ALERT: Worst-case scenario of Famine unfolding in the Gaza Strip https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/countries-in-focus-archive/issue-133/en/
- Dahlia Scheindlin (1/8/2025) Israel Is Turning Gaza Famine Into a Hasbara War. It Won’t Make It Less Real https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2025-08-01/ty-article/.premium/israel-is-turning-gaza-famine-into-a-hasbara-war-it-wont-make-it-less-real/00000198-60c7-de6e-a198-e8ef4ce50000
- Gideon Levy (27/7/2025) Denying Gaza’s Starvation Is No Less Vile Than Denying the Holocaust https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2025-07-27/ty-article-opinion/.premium/denying-gazas-starvation-is-no-less-vile-than-denying-the-holocaust/00000198-47b1-db91-a1df-efff77340000
- La Repubblica (1/8/2025) Grossman: “In Gaza it’s genocide, it breaks my heart but now I must say it” https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2025/07/31/news/grossman_intervista_scrittore_israeliano_gaza_guerra-424764877/
- Letter from five Israeli Universities to Netanyahu (29/7/2025) https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1153959673445423&set=a.601578122016917
- David Remnick (28/7/2025) Israel’s Zones of Denial, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/08/04/israels-zones-of-denial
