Outrage after Sky News describes Israeli soldiers as 'teenage victims'
Sky News has provoked outrage online after publishing a headline on Monday saying "Israel names teenage soldiers killed in Hezbollah attack - as '23 die' in Gaza school strike".
The headline refers to the soldiers as teenagers and says they were killed by Hezbollah.
By contrast, it puts Palestinian deaths in quotation marks and does not clarify that the school strike was carried out by the Israeli military.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
The headline was still up at 3pm British time, while the story appeared on Sky News' X account with a description of the soldiers as "teenage victims" - not referencing that they were soldiers.
But the headline has since been changed to, "Israel names soldiers killed in Hezbollah drone attack - as 23 killed in Gaza school strike", following outrage online.
Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for the drone attack on a military base in northern Israel which killed at least four soldiers and wounded scores of others.
The group said it fired a “swarm of drones” on a base in Binyamina, Israel, belonging to the Israeli army’s Golani Brigade.
On Sunday evening, a Sky News segment over three minutes long was widely criticised for not mentioning that the attack was on a military base.
A whole news report on the Binyamina attack and *not* one mention that it was a military base and the 67 injured are all IDF soldiers.
— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) October 13, 2024
Making it seem as though Hezbollah attacked civilians is transparently an attempt to continue justifying the US-Israeli war in Lebanon. https://t.co/BVwYvTf7qZ
A post on Monday on X by The Telegraph also called the soldiers "teenage soldiers" and named them.
Criticism of media coverage of the Hezbollah attack spread like wildfire online on Sunday evening and throughout Monday.
Interesting how Sky News have now deleted this post (without explaining)
— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) October 14, 2024
It was interesting how 19 year old Israeli *soldiers* in a military base during a war, elicited more sympathy than innocent Arab babies killed by Israel
The Instagram is still up:https://t.co/IgmGFiE6oT pic.twitter.com/ICL1Y7o7Ty
Hezbollah says its attack was in retaliation for Israel’s bombing of central Beirut on Thursday, which killed at least 22 people.
The group then warned Israel that “what it witnessed today in southern Haifa is nothing compared to what awaits it if it decides to continue its aggression against our noble and dear people”.
Israel has killed over 2,300 people in Lebanon since clashes with Hezbollah started on 8 October 2023.
Most of these deaths took place after 23 September 2024.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
