According to The Washington Post, 94 Palestinians and five Israelis have been killed since the Israel entered the Gaza Strip in the past two weeks. This doesn’t include the people killed in the bombing of an Egyptian resort hotel yesterday.
How many people died in that blast is unclear. The print edition of The Post puts the death toll at 35. But the story on the paper’s web site, updated at 8:00 this morning, claims “at least 20” dead.
The print story was front page all across the top page of the paper with a photo, prime newspaper real estate. Other stories about the conflict may have missed the reader’s attention over the past two week:
Israeli Attacks Kill 11 Palestinian Fighters
10 More Palestinians Killed in Gaza Blitz
19 Palestinians Killed in Gaza
7 Palestinians Killed in Spate Of Violence
Why did some of you miss these stories? Because they were, respectively, on pages A26, A14, A22 and A20.
These four stories alone add up to 47 Palestinians killed while 20 people, most presumed to be Israelis, were killed yesterday and five others over the past two weeks. And as noted, The Post puts the two week death toll at 94 Palestinians killed. Yet, The Post today follows its familiar pattern of giving prominent play to attacks that kill Israelis while burying stories about Palestinians killed in the conflict. That hardly seems balanced coverage.
When I wrote earlier this year about this issue, I concluded, “Let’s see where the next suicide attack story is placed.” Now we know.