From what I can gather this conflict as been going on a long time and the Hamas group has existed for a while too. Why are all the news cycles suddenly focusing on this the past few weeks?
Something like 10,000 civilians dead in the period of a month. Tends to draw the attention
OP has a point. There are other conflicts that have high body counts that don’t drive front page stories. Yemen. The stuff going on in Myanmar. Uyghurs. Even the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.
You’re right that this is a significant conflict, but our news industry doesn’t assign column inches to body count.
Not the volume of deaths, but the continuousness of deaths.
Everyday another ~300 people die on average.
Not to mention media availability, because it’s basically a prison having rockets thrown at it, media can get really good information. They’re not really in a war zone. It’s a one-sided killing field more or less. So great reporting conditions great visuals. Conflicts really concentrated. Just put the cameras right there. You’ll capture most of it.
If it bleeds it leads.
It’s that combined with the likelihood for this to turn into WWIII due to the complex web of nation alliances involved in this conflict. Also, many major religions believe the end of the world is tied to this situation.
Hamas led the largest attack on Israel in decades, Israel has responded with their most significant attack on Hamas in decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Hamas_attack_on_Israel?wprov=sfla1
Hamas announced the start of the operation, stating that it had fired over 5,000 rockets from the Gaza Strip into Israel within a span of 20 minutes. Israeli sources reported that at least 3,000 projectiles had been launched from Gaza. At least five people were killed by the rocket attacks.
They overwhelmed the air defense systems through sheer numbers. Proving a bit of theoretical weakness
I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the thousands of violent deaths may have something to do with it.
Have you heard about Yemen recently?
No? Then it must be quiet there. No deaths at all.
A cynical news producer would say “Yemen? Who cares? Muslims killing other Muslims is about as interesting as gang members killing other gang members. Give me Muslims and Jews killing each other, though, and we’re talking RATINGS, baby!”
Because it’s recently escalated from a simmering series of minor conflicts to full-blown war. Hamas launched a coordinated series of strikes against Israel on Oct. 7th, massacring lots of people, and Israel has responded by bombing Gaza indiscriminately, killing thousands of civilians in their attempts to slay Hamas leaders.
This is “new,” in other words. It’s receiving a lot of attention because it’s a big change from the state of things prior to 10/7/23.
To add to this, Israel has not performed a full-scale military invasion into Gaza before now.
There’s also a contingent that’s betting it’s the kickoff to the End Times.
It’s an easy story, there are clear sides, and there are vocal demographics in the West that really care about it.
So it drives clicks. Local Palestinian, Jewish, and related groups are saying stuff that makes for easy interviews. The “other side” is easy to find, so creating multi-source stories is a breeze. For journalists with tight daily deadlines, it’s a gift.
Even better, politicians are courting those groups, so they’re saying stuff that, again, is easy to report on. And it’s local news!
There are clear sides?
The right side, and the wrong side,. Plus you can interview people who argue about right versus wrong. It’s a lot of content that can be farmed
In your opinion, Which sides are which sides? I don’t need an essay, just a definition :)
From a media perspective it doesn’t matter. Also there’s more than two sides.
Which was the point I was getting to with the original commenter. But thanks for… ya know… jumping in.
Having “clear sides” doesn’t mean there’s a clear “right side” and “wrong side”, imo.
The sides aren’t very clear when you start looking closer. And they’re both the wrong side of you think about it. The best side is the “wow that’s a shit show I’m glad I’m not involved with” side.
Not to underplay the severity of the thousands and thousands of deaths, but it’s because christians are obsessed with Israel somehow being a keystone to their end of the world cult.
Muslims too
Also Jews
Because things escalated significantly in the last few weeks.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/06/1210831466/death-toll-gaza-israel-hamas-conflict
The world is something fundamentally different from what you see in your news.
I’m pretty sure these news are mostly in Europe and north America.
Recently, Hamas carried out their largest and most brutal attack on Israel, killing many innocent people and generating international shock
Israel is now responding by invading Gaza: a dense, poor city with about 2 million people in it to try to wipe out Hamas.
There is now worldwide outrage at Israel’s response, which is disproportionately deadly due to their advanced military and billions of foreign aid. People are protesting Israel as an apartheid state and claiming that they are now pursuing genocidal goals.
Israel’s genocidal revenge campaign is finally on full display with no legitimate distractions in the news cycle. Even in the US, despite the Israeli government’s efforts to influence ours, there’s public pushback that can’t be ignored.
Also, if anything happening on the planet right now is going to ignite World War III, this is it.
For years many in Syria have said that WW3 has already begun and is being fought in the middle east. You could very well argue this is the opening stage of World War 3. We’re only one misclick, or one civilian airliner being shot down away from even greater catastrophe.
It’s been simmering on the stove for a while but someone must have put the lid on the pot or something because it boiled out all over the place and burnt grandma
Israel is one of the US’s biggest allies, calling the attention of the American media, and the world often talks about what the US is talking about. Didn’t Zelenskyy talk about the Israel-Hamas conflict taking attention off Ukraine?
Probably because this conflict is good for Russia to get the west focusing on something else. I bet they are tunneling money/weapons to Hamas, and probably using their troll army to keep it relevant.
Other big conflicts and humanitarian catastrophes are not covered by the media strangely.
Fuck war, fuck authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, fuck people wanting to hurt other people.
I mean, shit hit the fan. That tends to get attention.
