The Hill reports that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres “harshly condemned the Israeli government Sunday for its conduct in the Israel-Hamas war, as the civilian death toll in Gaza surpasses 25,000.” He told a U.N. summit that “Israel’s military operations have spread massive destruction and killed civilians on a scale unprecedented during my time as Secretary-General, including more than 150 members of our own staff, following the horrific terror attacks by Hamas” on October 7. Guterres called Israel’s actions “heart-breaking, and utterly unacceptable.”

Last week, the U.N. reported: “Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege.” And the statement quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”

How much of such realities is conveyed to Americans in ways anywhere near commensurate to the actual suffering?

In a piece titled “Why We’re Not Seeing the Real Gaza War in the Media,” author Norman Solomon writes: “The media words and images reach us light years away from what it’s actually like to be in a war zone. The experience of consuming news from afar could hardly be more different. And if we hold beliefs or unconscious notions that media outlets are conveying war’s realities, that only ends up obscuring those realities all the more.”

Solomon adds that “for the vast majority of Americans, no matter how much mainstream media they consume, the war that actually exists — in contrast to the war reporting by news outlets — remains virtually invisible.”

Available for interviews:

NORMAN SOLOMON, solomonprogressive[at]gmail.com
Solomon is the author of War Made Invisible. He is the executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.