Media Coverage of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict

Conflict reporting occupied 315 of the 512 Israel-related articles in a study of British newspapers published in 2017; the remaining 38 percent addressed domestic politics, society, culture, economics, and relations with other states.[1] This distribution placed the Israeli–Palestinian conflict at the center of the sampled newspapers’ reporting about Israel without making it their exclusive subject.[1] Differences between publications were substantial: conflict-related articles accounted for 71 percent of The Guardian’s Israel coverage, compared with 52 percent at The Times.[1]

Studies have approached coverage through different units of analysis, including individual articles and television reports, as well as the space or airtime devoted to a story.[3][8] Other work has counted interviewee appearances across broadcast and social platforms or examined anonymous sources in Gaza-war reporting.[5][9] Research has also examined how journalists contextualize international involvement and how domestic and foreign broadcasters frame the same event.[10][11] These approaches address distinct aspects of reporting rather than providing a single shared measure of coverage.[10][9]

The British study, published in 2021, examined The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Mirror, The Sun, and Metro.[1] Researchers screened more than 800 items retrieved using the word “Israel,” retaining articles in which Israel was a main subject and counting only the final version of developing-story coverage published each day.[1] Metro’s archive limitations restricted its contribution to May–December 2017.[1]

Within the conflict-related sample, 205 articles, or 65 percent, were classified as coverage of conflict on the ground, and 110, or 35 percent, as coverage of the international arena.[1] The topics examined included settlements, attacks, Palestinian protests, Israeli military activity, foreign-government decisions, international organizations, and civil-society campaigns.[1] The most frequently covered individual issue was the Trump administration’s December 2017 announcement that the U.S. Embassy would move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, appearing in 16 percent of conflict-related articles and in all five newspapers.[1]

A 2003 study of reporting on the al-Aqsa intifada examined seven major U.S. outlets: The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox.[3] Rather than review two full years of reporting, it selected ten episodes and examined five days of coverage around each.[3] The selection included diplomatic and violent events, with occasions on which most victims were Israeli and others on which most were Palestinian; the material comprised newspaper stories, television broadcasts, and transcripts.[3]

Arab satellite broadcasting also brought Israeli officials before audiences that did not commonly encounter such interviews on Arab channels.[12] Al-Jazeera interviewed Shimon Peres and Ehud Barak, while maintaining a strong reporting presence in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza.[12] Its relationship with Palestinian authorities was not uniformly accommodating: the Palestinian Authority closed its Ramallah office for three days in 2001 after Yasser Arafat reportedly objected to a documentary critical of his leadership.[12]

Fighting between Israel and Hamas accounted for 21 percent of the U.S. news “newshole” during December 29, 2008–January 4, 2009.[8] Across an index of 48 print, online, television, cable, and radio outlets, it was the second-biggest overseas story in any week of the preceding two years.[8] Coverage encompassed events on the ground as well as geopolitical and domestic political questions.[8] Israel barred reporters from entering Gaza during the fighting, prompting journalists’ protests, while its launch of a wartime YouTube channel reflected the role of images and public perceptions in the conflict.[8]

Research subsequently examined particular episodes and editorial questions in greater detail.[10][11] Margret Müller’s 2017, 281-page dissertation analyzed four general daily Israeli newspapers’ coverage during the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, asking how international involvement was contextualized and qualified, whether societal beliefs shaped reporting, and whether crisis coverage differed from routine reporting.[10] The available catalog description identifies these questions and the content-analysis approach but supplies no findings.[10]

A study of the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange examined 2,162 reports from BBC, CNN, Fox, and Israeli Channels 1 and 2.[11] The deal exchanged Shalit for 1,027 prisoners.[11] Researchers found strong alignment between the Israeli channels and the government’s position, identified the BBC as the most balanced broadcaster within their comparison, and reported prominent differences between CNN and Fox.[11]

Related research on Israeli wartime journalism examined newspaper news pages during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.[4] Much of the criticism addressed the conduct of the war—strategic and tactical choices, public-information failures, logistics, and treatment of the home front—rather than the decision to fight.[4] Criticism of that decision appeared mainly after the war, when its outcome was known.[4] The researchers were Oren Meyers of the University of Haifa and Motti Neiger and Eyal Zandberg of Netanya Academic College; their findings also identified foreign governments and Lebanese sources as important external sources of criticism.[4]

During Operation Guardian of the Walls in 2021, the destruction of Gaza’s al-Jalaa Tower, used in part by foreign media including the Associated Press, drew wide international criticism.[13] Strategic-communications analysis of the operation treated the tower strike as its most notable media event and examined the relationship between military decisions, communications preparation, and diplomatic consequences.[13]

After October 7, 2023, Israeli outlets rapidly began continuous reporting from attack sites, with extensive attention to victims, hostages, soldiers, and civilian mobilization.[14] Journalists gave residents under siege a platform to describe their circumstances and sometimes helped direct security forces to their locations.[14] A June 2024 analysis examined the subsequent evolution of reporting through, in part, a closed-door discussion held on December 28, 2023, with senior journalists and other participants speaking anonymously and in their personal capacities.[14]

Restrictions on independent foreign reporting from Gaza have made local journalists, remotely directed staff, and periodic embedding with Israeli troops important elements of international newsgathering.[5] An analysis of anonymous sourcing assembled 436 stories from seven major U.S. media platforms during the first six months of the Gaza war.[5] Of these, 379 cited anonymous or confidential government or organizational officials, while 57 cited local people anonymously.[5] Its classification attributed 72 percent of citations of anonymous local, nonofficial sources to The Washington Post.[5]

Reporting conditions also include pressure from Palestinian authorities and terrorist organizations.[7][15] Accounts collected for the 2024 U.S. human-rights report included NGO allegations of Palestinian Authority harassment, intimidation, arrests, and social-media monitoring.[7] In Gaza, reported Hamas restrictions and pressure led journalists and activists to self-censor; accounts also described forced deletion of footage and assaults over critical reporting.[7] Local journalists reported official and unofficial directives concerning terminology, story lines, and interviewees, alongside Israeli restrictions and reported detentions affecting journalists.[7]

In 2014, the Foreign Press Association publicly accused Hamas authorities and representatives of harassing, threatening, or questioning visiting international journalists over reports and social-media posts.[15] The association also alleged that Hamas sought a vetting procedure capable of blacklisting journalists and warned that such pressure could obstruct an objective account from the ground.[15] These were the association’s allegations rather than independently established findings in the report carrying its statement.[15]

Journalists also face risks and restrictions involving Israeli forces.[7][16] A 2024 casualty figure attributed to the Committee to Protect Journalists counted 82 journalists and media workers killed during that year because of the Israel–Hamas conflict; in some cases, the IDF maintained that those killed were embedded with Hamas terrorists.[7] Gaza journalists Nidal al-Waheidi and Haitham Abdelwahed remained missing at year’s end.[7] In September 2024, Israeli soldiers raided Al Jazeera’s Ramallah offices and prevented it from operating in the West Bank; Israeli authorities linked the action to what they identified as pro-Hamas coverage and Qatari support for Hamas, and the office remained closed at year’s end.[7]

Access disputes have continued alongside arguments about what restricted access means for reporting quality.[17] In 2024, the BBC’s head of news and current affairs said international journalists lacked independent access to Gaza, limiting verification and independent reporting, and the broadcaster supported a Foreign Press Association legal case seeking access.[17] Reporting constraints have also prompted discussion of reliance on local stringers and limited Hebrew or Arabic proficiency among foreign correspondents.[18] An estimate by journalist Ehud Yaari that Palestinian crews supplied more than 95 percent of television pictures sent by satellite to foreign and Israeli channels referred to the period of his estimate, not a current measurement of all conflict coverage.[18]

Terminology is another component of journalistic practice.[6] The International Press Institute’s 2013 “Use with Care” glossary was compiled with six Israeli and Palestinian journalists and covered more than 75 terms in English, Hebrew, and Arabic.[6] It explained potentially controversial or offensive language and generally suggested less loaded alternatives, with accuracy and fairness as its stated aims.[6] Its recommendations favored identifying actors and describing incidents specifically, such as a suicide bombing, rockets fired at civilians, or an airstrike that killed civilians.[6]

The glossary recommended applying “terrorism” and “terrorist” to violence against civilians intended to advance political goals, while acknowledging Israeli–Palestinian disagreement over application of those terms.[6] It also presented opposing positions on “apartheid”: many Israelis rejected the characterization of Israeli policy and considered the comparison offensive, while Palestinians argued that it applied to separation policies and restrictions on Palestinian movement.[6]

Digital platforms can alter who appears in news and who reaches audiences.[9][2] A 2021 quantitative study compared Palestinian–Israeli interviewees’ appearances across all news and current-affairs programs on Israel’s five major broadcast networks over twelve months with appearances on those programs’ Facebook and Twitter accounts.[9] The researchers found the social-networking sites more enabling of capabilities for Palestinian–Israelis than the broadcasts; the available description does not specify the networks or calendar dates.[9]

A separate study examined high-engagement English-language X posts about Israel, Hamas, and Gaza during October 7–10, 2023.[2] Researchers selected posts with more than 500 likes, ranked accounts by exposure, and excluded accounts that were not news-focused or did not publish in English.[2] Seven nontraditional accounts, described as a “new elite,” produced 1,834 posts receiving 1.6 billion views, compared with 112 million views for 298 posts from six major-media accounts.[2] The independent accounts included pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, and other positions; their shared feature was posting style, not a common political stance.[2]

Audience attention is distinct from the volume of news production: a 2024 U.S. survey found that 22 percent of adults followed Israel–Hamas war news extremely or very closely, 35 percent somewhat closely, and 43 percent not too or not at all closely.[19] Close attention was more common among Jewish and Muslim Americans than among the other religious or nonreligious groups examined.[19] These figures measured reported attention, not the accuracy, balance, or quantity of news coverage.[19]

A one-time framing experiment used otherwise identical surveys with pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian introductions, administered to U.S. samples of 505 and 507 respondents during December 10–12, 2024.[20] In an account published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, the authors reported generally small differences between groups, including one comparison that was not statistically significant, and cautioned that repeated testing was needed to establish whether the apparent lack of effect was meaningful.[20]

The scale and persistence of attention have also been studied internationally.[21] An independent analysis of nearly 14.7 million articles from 2017 through August 2026 used GDELT data across 65 languages, excluding each country’s domestic press.[21] Its reported findings included unusually persistent Israel coverage after major events and a 2024 estimate that one in every 26 global news articles mentioned Israel.[21] GDELT’s tone score measures positive and negative language, however, rather than whether reporting is biased.[21]

A separate keyword comparison counted 14,061 New York Times items containing both Israel-related and Palestinian-related terms during September 11, 2001–January 1, 2011, against 110 containing both “Muslim Brotherhood” and “Saudi Arabia.”[22] Corresponding Associated Press totals were 26,117 and 149; for January 2011–July 2013, the Times totals were 2,357 and 140.[22] These counts included news, analysis, columns, and editorials matching the specified terms, rather than equivalent samples of events.[22]

Coverage of boycott campaigns illustrates the difference between a prominent political debate and its measured share of reporting.[1] Only 20 of the British study’s 512 articles—4 percent—directly addressed BDS or other civil-society boycott campaigns.[1] Fourteen were culturally focused, often involving pressure on artists to cancel Israeli performances, and The Guardian accounted for 82 percent of BDS-related coverage.[1] The articles’ tone varied from supportive to balanced to opposed.[1]

Studies of topic selection and sourcing have produced other specific counts.[23][24] A watchdog review of BBC News website reporting in 2022 classified 53 of 206 items as internal Israeli affairs and 14 as internal Palestinian affairs, with four months containing no new reporting on Palestinian affairs and only three items addressing Gaza’s internal affairs.[23] In a separate disagreement over NPR’s January–March 2003 coverage, NPR counted 60 relevant pieces and 65 Israeli versus 49 Palestinian or other Arab voices, while a competing review counted 96 transcripts and 70 Israeli or pro-Israeli versus 101 Arab or pro-Arab voices.[24]

The content and historical context supplied by reporting have received qualitative scrutiny as well.[25][26] A study of BBC1 and ITV reporting concluded that Israeli government perspectives received favorable treatment and that Palestinian displacement, Israeli rule in territories captured in 1967, and effects on the Palestinian economy received insufficient attention.[25] A 2024 peer-reviewed chapter comparing Israeli reporting of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine with Israel’s 2014 Gaza incursion identified inconsistent evidential standards that shifted with political affinity.[26]

German-media research has examined distortions and Israel-related antisemitism.[27][28] Preliminary qualitative findings concerning 2023 coverage identified relatively rare antisemitic stereotypes alongside more frequent negative distortions, one-sided perspectives, and inadequate historical context.[27] Coverage appeared somewhat more supportive of Israel after October 7 than before, except in letters to the editor and interviews, though the researchers called for further research into whether that change would endure.[27]

Another qualitative analysis examined 122 regional and national German print and online articles and identified recurring Nazi analogies, portrayals of Israel as amoral or criminal, attributions of vengefulness, and assertions that criticism of Israel was taboo.[28] A 2025 study of German coverage in 2023 likewise identified emphasis on violence and escalation, portrayals of Israel as sole aggressor, relativization of terrorist violence, and inadequate historical context.[29] Its available abstract identifies a qualitative method but does not supply a sample size.[29]

Research into agency and responsibility has focused on individual outlets.[30] Edieal Pinker’s published analysis examined 1,559 New York Times articles from October 7, 2023, through June 7, 2024, counting 27,205 mentions of Israel and 8,499 of Hamas.[30] He argued that the coverage assigned near-exclusive agency and responsibility to Israel while giving less attention to Hamas’s continuing role.[30] The study classified 969 articles within its “dominant narrative” category.[30] Earlier reporting on the preliminary work described a 1,561-article corpus and noted that photographs, headline-to-article fit, and editorials were outside its scope.[31]

Claims of general bias remain disputed because studies examine different outlets, periods, samples, and definitions.[1][25] The 2003 U.S. intifada study explicitly used no formal methodology, emphasized perceived failures rather than unproblematic stories, and disclosed its author’s Jewish identity and support for Israel.[3] The British study rejected a general “David-turned-Goliath” interpretation of its sample and warned against extrapolation beyond Britain in 2017.[1] Criticism of the BBC1 and ITV study challenged its historical interpretation rather than establishing an agreed judgment about coverage.[25]

Disputes concerning Al-Jazeera have included critics’ objections to images of Palestinian suffering, “martyrdom operations” terminology, and programs featuring anti-Israeli or antisemitic viewpoints, including “Is Zionism Worse Than Nazism?” and discussion of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[12] Supporters defended its Arab perspective and real-time portrayal of Palestinian hardships; some Arab critics instead accused it of collaborating with Israel because it interviewed Israeli officials.[12]

An Asserson-led review of four months of BBC reporting after October 7 used a nine-million-word database, human review, translated Arabic material, and AI tools.[32] It claimed more than 1,500 editorial breaches, 592 associations of Israel with “war crimes” against 98 for Hamas, a 62–66 percent sympathy imbalance on the English website, and pro-Palestinian bias in over 90 percent of examined Arabic items.[32] It counted use of “proscribed terrorist organization” for Hamas in 7.7 percent of cases.[32] The BBC challenged the methodology and “balance of sympathy” measure, distinguishing it from due impartiality.[32] The Times rejected criticism of its coverage.[30] Pinker’s preliminary cautions distinguished framing analysis from proving intent or bias.[31]

Interpretive accounts also differ: post-October 7 Israeli newsroom discussions described initial national-unity reporting, limited Gaza coverage, and a partial shift after three hostages were accidentally killed by IDF fire.[14] These accounts were not representative content analysis.[14] Similarly, assessments of the al-Jalaa strike, asymmetric television coverage, and skepticism toward Israeli statements after the Al-Ahli hospital explosion were strategic or interview-based interpretations.[13][33] Reuters bureau chief Luke Baker rejected general claims of foreign-press imbalance in 2016, emphasizing corrections and access problems amid controversy over preliminary Damascus Gate headlines and correspondent William Booth’s detention, which prompted Israeli condemnation and an apology.[16]