Tel Aviv: Israel's war on the Gaza Strip has turned into a relentless act of revenge, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said in a forceful editorial responding to images of Palestinian children killed in Israeli airstrikes.
According to Anadolu Agency, the editorial criticized the growing normalization of graphic images circulating on Israeli social media of children's bodies in Gaza, parents carrying wounded sons and daughters, and families bidding farewell to their dead. The editorial stated, "We can continue to ignore the number of Palestinians in the Strip who have been killed, to question the credibility of the figures, to use all of the mechanisms of denial and justification. None of this will change the bitter fact: Israel killed them. Our hands did this."
The newspaper expressed concern over the images from which people avert their eyes and the justifications made for the ongoing war. It highlighted the Israeli fighter jets' strike on a school sheltering displaced civilians in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of 32 Palestinians, including nine children and four women.
Haaretz condemned the Israeli media for largely refraining from publishing images of Palestinian women and children killed in Gaza since the start of the war. Instead, coverage has focused on photos of destroyed homes and streets or Israeli warplanes bombing residential neighborhoods. The editorial included a picture of a Palestinian girl injured in the Israeli strike on the school-turned shelter, emphasizing, "We do not want to see the girl in this picture. If we see her, we will feel guilty."
The Israeli army has launched a military onslaught on Gaza, resulting in the deaths of nearly 52,800 people, mostly women and children, since October 7, 2023. Additionally, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.