{"id":317400,"date":"2017-07-15T04:22:47","date_gmt":"2017-07-15T03:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/while-attacks-in-israel-make-headlines-humanitarian-crisis-in-gaza-ignored\/"},"modified":"2017-07-15T04:22:47","modified_gmt":"2017-07-15T03:22:47","slug":"while-attacks-in-israel-make-headlines-humanitarian-crisis-in-gaza-ignored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/while-attacks-in-israel-make-headlines-humanitarian-crisis-in-gaza-ignored\/","title":{"rendered":"While Attacks in Israel Make Headlines, Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza Ignored"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Girl<\/a><\/p>\n

A Palestinian girl in Gaza looks out the window of her partially destroyed home. (photo: UNICEF)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The recent acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza<\/a>\u2014on top of the routine humanitarian crisis that defines everyday existence there\u2014has gotten sparse coverage in US media over the past three weeks.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials have cut off electricity to almost 2 million Gazans for all but three or four hours a day\u2014in conjunction with nominal Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who has cut funding for Gaza\u2019s electricity in an effort to punish his political rivals in Hamas. The Gaza Strip, which remains under effective Israeli control<\/a> despite the 2005 withdrawal of Israeli troops, requires 450 megawatts daily, but since June has received only around 150 megawatts per day. The power cuts, according<\/a> to UN humanitarian coordinator Robert Piper, severely undermine \u201ccritical functions in the health, water and sanitation sectors,\u201d and have created a “looming humanitarian catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vast majority of US media also ignored a devastating UN report<\/a> published Tuesday, documenting the humanitarian conditions in Gaza over the past ten years.<\/p>\n

Neither the electrical crisis nor the UN report has been covered by the New York Times,<\/b> ABC<\/b>, CBS<\/b>, NBC<\/b>, CNN<\/b>, MSNBC <\/b>or Fox News<\/b>\u2014though the Times <\/b>and ABC <\/b>did run AP<\/b> reports on the former.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post <\/b>\u00a0(6\/22\/17<\/a>) reported on the electricity cuts just over three weeks ago, but made sure to note in their headline \u201cit\u2019s not all Israel\u2019s fault.\u201d The Post<\/b> (7\/12\/17<\/a>) also mentioned the Gaza electricity cuts in a broader piece, told from Israel\u2019s perspective, about that country\u2019s fears that \u201cHamas will go to war.\u201d \u00a0NPR<\/b> did not report on the electricity crisis, but unlike the Post<\/b>, it did have a piece (7\/11\/17<\/a>) on the UN report.<\/p>\n

In stark contrast, an attack on two Israeli police officers in Jerusalem Thursday was reported by all the above outlets except MSNBC<\/b>. The New York Times <\/b>(7\/14\/17<\/a>), ABC News<\/b> (7\/14\/17<\/a>), CBS News<\/b> (7\/14\/17<\/a>), NBC News<\/b> (7\/14\/17<\/a>), CNN <\/b>(7\/14\/17<\/a>), Fox News<\/b> (7\/14\/17<\/a>), all dedicated airtime and\/or column inches to the shooting in the Old City.<\/p>\n

Attacks on Israeli forces\u2014even ones that occur, like this week\u2019s strike, in illegally occupied territory\u2014are framed as random acts of hate with no political context. None of the above reports on the Jerusalem attack made any mention of the increasingly dire situation in Gaza. Nor, even more conspicuously, was there any mention of Israel\u2019s killing of two Palestinians<\/a> in a West Bank refugee camp less than a day before.<\/p>\n

The routine, \u201cfactored-in\u201d suffering of Palestinians\u2014even when ramped up to hellish levels\u2014is barely worth a mention by US media. It just is. And when it is touched on, it\u2019s generally framed as Hamas or the Palestinian Authority\u2019s fault, with the broader role played by Israel’s devastating, 50-year-occupation downplayed or omitted.<\/p>\n

<\/span>
\nThis piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Palestinian girl in Gaza looks out the window of her partially destroyed home. (photo: UNICEF) The recent acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza\u2014on top of the routine humanitarian crisis that defines everyday existence there\u2014has gotten sparse coverage in US media over the past three weeks. Israeli officials have cut off electricity to almost 2 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2521,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-317400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}