The Palestinian tragedy stretches across generations; a wound carried in the open for the world to see yet so often ignored. Entire communities have been uprooted, cities shattered, and families torn apart, while the global news cycle moves on as if grief has an expiration date. The media, once trusted to bear witness, has repeatedly failed them reducing a people’s suffering to fleeting headlines, softening the language of occupation, and avoiding the uncomfortable truths that demand moral courage. When reporters dared to ask real questions, many were reprimanded or removed. When anchors tried to name the injustice plainly, their voices were cut short.

Into that silence stepped ordinary people activists, creators, and influencers who refused to let the story die. They filled the void left by institutions, using their platforms to show the world what cameras would not. But the moment these voices grew too loud, a new wave of pressure emerged. Accounts were flagged, demonetized, shadow‑banned, or erased entirely. Videos disappeared. Livestreams were cut. Entire pages vanished overnight. It became clear that the struggle was no longer only on the ground in Gaza or the West Bank it was also online, in the battle over truth itself.

This is why supporting independent reporters and creators is no longer optional; it is essential. They are the last line of defense against erasure. They document what others bury. They speak when institutions fall silent. They carry stories that would otherwise be lost. Their work is not polished or sanitized, it is raw, urgent, and human. And in a world where truth is filtered through political interests, independent voices have become the closest thing we have to unfiltered reality.

But even as we uplift these voices, we must pause to honor those who paid the ultimate price. The Palestinian journalists who ran toward danger, not away from it. The photographers who captured their homeland’s final moments before becoming targets themselves. The reporters who documented the destruction of their own neighborhoods, knowing each assignment could be their last. Their courage was not abstract, it was lived, breathed, and carried into the fire. They were chroniclers of a people’s suffering, guardians of memory, and witnesses the world desperately needed.

And beyond them, the Palestinian people themselves, mothers burying children, children burying parents, families burying entire bloodlines have become the living archive of a tragedy the world has yet to fully confront. Their endurance is a testament. Their grief is a record. Their resilience is a rebuke to every attempt to silence them.

In their names, and in the names of those who continue to speak when silence would be safer, we keep telling this story. Because truth, once spoken, refuses to disappear.

This is This Week in Palestine.

Today we turn to a YouTube video that has resurfaced with renewed relevance: “Israel Does Not Target the Palestinian Civilians.”
The video, originally uploaded more than a decade ago, challenges one of Israel’s most frequently repeated claims that its military avoids harming civilians.
Through archival footage and documented incidents, it highlights a long‑standing pattern of civilian casualties in Gaza and the West Bank.
It also exposes the gap between official Israeli messaging and the findings of journalists and human rights organizations.
Investigations cited in related reporting show that the majority of Palestinians killed in major Israeli offensives have been civilians.
This includes Christians, who make up a small but historic community in Bethlehem, Beit Jala, Jerusalem, and Gaza.
The video’s context is especially important today, as Palestinian Christian leaders continue to report harassment, land seizures, and restrictions on worship imposed by Israeli authorities.
Church properties have faced repeated attacks by extremist settlers, and clergy have documented rising intimidation in occupied East Jerusalem.
In Bethlehem, the separation wall cuts Christian neighborhoods off from Jerusalem, limiting access to holy sites and economic life.
These realities contradict the narrative that Christians in Palestine enjoy freedom under Israeli control.
The video underscores how official statements often obscure the lived experiences of both Muslim and Christian Palestinians.
It shows how language phrases like “precision strikes” or “human shields” is used to deflect accountability for civilian harm.
At the same time, it documents the destruction of homes, schools, and churches that has shaped Palestinian life for generations.
The contrast between rhetoric and reality is stark.
The video argues that the claim “Israel does not target civilians” functions more as a political talking point than an accurate description of military conduct.
It invites viewers to examine the evidence themselves rather than rely on official narratives.
It also highlights the importance of independent documentation in conflict zones.
For many, this video serves as an early record of a pattern that continues today.
It is not just a historical clip, it is a reminder of how narratives are constructed, repeated, and used to justify ongoing harm.
And it challenges us to ask: when the evidence contradicts the rhetoric, whose truth do we accept?

This is This Week in Palestine.

When the Story Becomes the Weapon

Today, we open with the reality the world keeps trying to rename. On Saturday, Israeli airstrikes across Gaza killed at least thirty‑two Palestinians—lives added to the more than five hundred already lost during what officials insisted on calling a “ceasefire.” A ceasefire in name only. One that never reached the families sheltering in shattered buildings, never reached the children sleeping under tarps, never reached the wounded waiting for medical care that no longer exists.

And then, on Monday, the Rafah crossing to Egypt was partially opened, framed as a gesture of humanitarian relief. But Israel announced it would allow only one hundred and fifty Palestinians to leave each day. As one emergency medic put it, “At this rate, it would take over a year for the twenty thousand awaiting evacuation to leave.” A year for people who do not have a year. A year for people who may not have a week.

This is the landscape as Israel’s assault—what many scholars, jurists, and human rights organizations have described as genocide—enters its twenty‑eighth month. Twenty‑eight months of siege, bombardment, starvation, displacement, and the systematic destruction of a society. Twenty‑eight months of a world watching, calculating, debating, and too often doing nothing.

But this violence is not sustained by military force alone. It is upheld by political alliances, diplomatic cover, and—perhaps most powerfully—by the stories told about it. Stories that shape public opinion. Stories that justify policy. Stories that turn victims into threats and atrocities into “self‑defense.”

And nowhere has that complicity been clearer than in the Western media ecosystem. One of the most glaring examples is the now‑debunked New York Times story “Screams Without Words.” Published with dramatic flair and presented as investigative journalism, it claimed to uncover evidence of systematic sexual violence committed by Palestinians on October 7th. The story was immediately amplified by U.S. officials and used to justify the continued flow of weapons, funding, and diplomatic protection for Israel’s actions. It became a talking point, a rallying cry, a moral shield for the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

But the story wasn’t true. Not partially true. Not misinterpreted. It collapsed under scrutiny—built on unverifiable testimonies, politically motivated sources, and evidence that contradicted the narrative. Internal fact‑checkers were sidelined. Doubts were ignored. And once the story was out, it spread unchecked: repeated on cable news, cited by politicians, weaponized by commentators, and absorbed by the public as fact.

This is how propaganda works today—not through state‑run newspapers, but through respected institutions that carry the veneer of credibility. And when those institutions fail, the consequences are not abstract. They are measured in lives. While false claims circulated, Gaza was being bombed. Families were being buried under rubble. Hospitals were being destroyed. Children were starving. Entire neighborhoods were being erased.

This is not just a media critique. This is about the cost of a lie.

Today, we examine how narratives are constructed, how they travel, and how they are used to justify the unjustifiable. We look at the machinery behind the headlines, the politics behind the storytelling, and the human beings erased in the process.

Stay with us,
as we pull apart the narratives that shield power,
as we center the voices long pushed aside,
and as we insist on truth in a moment built on distortion.

This is This Week in Palestine.