9 headlines that misrepresent Israeli aggression against Palestinians

Israel's war on Palestinians isn't just unfolding on the ground, it's also a battle of narratives, pictures, and headlines that inform global public opinion about what's happening on the ground.

Language, terminology and emphasis are essential ingredients that can either provide clarity or a lack of context.

In this war of narratives, Palestinians have to contend with a media machinery, mainly in Western countries that often underplays, misreports or equalises protests by the occupied with the violence of the occupier.

Increasingly, however, there is a fightback by ordinary people, activists and Palestinians holding the media to account and informing millions.

These are just some of the headlines that have misrepresented the conflict.

German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle Tweeted to its almost half a million followers: "Palestinian health officials in the Gaza Strip say 20 people, including nine children, have been killed in fighting with Israel." The headline suggests children died fighting Israel when that wasn't the case.

Some asked: "How were the children fighting?" 

The Associated Press (AP) is a global news agency with its stories republished by more than 1,300 newspapers and broadcasters around the world.

Its headline 'Rockets kill 2 Israelis; 26 die in Gaza as Israel hits Hamas' uses an active voice to describe Israeli deaths while using a passive voice to describe Palestinian victims of Israeli airstrikes. 

Palestinian victims die without a cause. And such headlines are often copied and pasted by media houses around the world. The headline also leads with the lower number of dead, suggesting a hierarchy of importance.

Similarly, Reuters, another global news agency, leads with the headline 'Hamas and Israel trade blows as Jerusalem unrest ignites Gaza.' 

The headline suggests that Hamas, a resistance movement fighting occupation, is an equal opponent of Israel, a nuclear-armed state backed by the latest US-made military arsenal.

In another headline, Reuters again misleads audiences in a headline stating, "Palestinians stone Israeli car, which crashes, as Jerusalem seethes."

The headline remained even as video footage quickly emerged that the driver had used his car to ram into innocent civilian bystanders.

In the United States, the popular right-wing tabloid, the New York Post completely reversed casualties of Israeli airstrikes on the civilian population of Gaza. In fact, two Israelis were killed. The less said, the better. 

One of the most striking words in the latest round of violence by the Israeli military on occupied Palestinians has been the word "clashes."

Whether it's a conscious decision to obfuscate or whether because it's a convenient word, the word "clashes" does not assign blame to any party. For Israel, the use of the word is a propaganda victory, it means the occupier is not seen as the root cause of protests by Palestinians. 

Israeli government propaganda often claims that its military violence is a "response" to Palestinians actions. Too often, global media outlets are only happy to toe that line. Remember that it's Israel that is the occupying power, not the Palestinians.