{"id":312982,"date":"2026-02-09T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=312982"},"modified":"2026-02-06T21:48:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:48:16","slug":"gaza-teaches-us-that-only-some-lives-are-worth-talking-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/02\/gaza-teaches-us-that-only-some-lives-are-worth-talking-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza Teaches Us That only Some Lives Are Worth Talking About"},"content":{"rendered":"

5 Feb 2026 – <\/em>Since the so-called ceasefire came into effect in Gaza, Israel has killed over 500 Palestinians. But these lives \u2013 according to western media and politicians \u2013 are not worth talking about.<\/p>\n

You probably won\u2019t have heard about Zaina, Menna and Maryam Al-Atbash<\/a>. On Saturday, the remains of these young sisters were found on the street by their uncle. Aged between five and nine, they had been blown out of their Gaza City apartment by an Israeli airstrike. Their grandmother, Um Nael Al-Atbash, and aunt, nurse Islam Al-Atbash were also killed in the blast.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unlikely too, that you will have read anything about siblings Jibril and Sham Abu Hadaid<\/a>. On the same day the Al-Atbash sisters were blown to pieces, these little children were sleeping in their tent in Khan Younis when it too was struck, burning them alive. The attack killed seven members from three generations of the Abu Hadaid family.<\/p>\n

And you definitely won\u2019t know anything about the lives or identities of over 200 Palestinians whose graves were ransacked<\/a> last week during an operation to retrieve a single Israeli body. For two days, the Israeli military mobilised tanks, drones and what locals described as \u201cexplosive robots\u201d to recover the remains of Ran Gvili \u2013 an Israeli policeman killed more than two years ago. \u201cThey dug up about 200 graves,\u201d Khamis al-Rifi, a journalist in Gaza, said. \u201cThey tested them one by one until they found the [Israeli] body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ran Gvili\u2019s story has been blasted all over western media. There are countless articles celebrating his life, complete with photographs and anecdotes from his family and friends. His remains were air-lifted to Israel for a dignified burial. The unearthed Palestinian bodies, on the other hand, were left \u201ccovered with sand by the bulldozers,\u201d with \u201csome still visible on the surface\u201d al-Rifi said.<\/p>\n

Four Palestinian civilians were also killed by Israeli fire as they attempted to check on the graves of their loved ones following the operation. Like the bodies dug up by bulldozers \u2013 and the thousands more buried under Gaza\u2019s rubble \u2013 we don\u2019t know their names or anything about them.<\/p>\n

A hierarchy of worth<\/strong><\/p>\n

The message\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0being sold is clear. Some lives are worth talking about; others are worth nothing at all.<\/p>\n

Of course, this narrative is not new. For decades, wealthy white people from western countries have been afforded infinitely more worth than poor brown and black people from the global south. The livestreamed genocide in Gaza however, has laid this disparity bare.<\/p>\n

Just compare the days of wall-to-wall coverage of the Bondi beach attack with reports of 32 Palestinians killed on Saturday<\/a>. Israeli forces killed more than twice the number of people killed in Australia. But those Palestinian deaths during a so-called ceasefire didn\u2019t even make the headlines.<\/p>\n

Blocking communication channels<\/strong><\/p>\n

This erasure of Palestinian identity is no accident. Israel has done everything in its power to ensure the stories of Palestinians do not make it out of Gaza. Since October 2023, Israel has banned international media<\/a> from entering the enclave, making it impossible to come close to reporting on the actual number of people killed, maimed, orphaned \u2013 let alone faithfully tell their stories. At the same time, it has systematically assassinated<\/a> Gaza-based journalists.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the year, Israel revoked the licences of 37 life-saving aid groups<\/a> \u2013 including Oxfam and Doctors without Borders (MSF) \u2013 ensuring they can no longer operate in the Palestinian territories. Beyond depriving Palestinians of vital aid, the move cuts off one of the last remaining channels through which the world can see what is happening in Gaza. MSF in particular have born witness to Palestinian suffering, sharing stories with western media<\/a> and documenting some of the horrors they\u2019ve witnessed in Gaza through published reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s refusal last week<\/a> to renew UN spokesperson Olga Cherevko\u2019s visa prompted UNRWA\u2019s Director-General Philippe Lazzarini to state<\/a>: \u201c[this] follows a pattern of actively silencing aid workers\u2026who are considered \u2018too vocal\u2019 about what they have seen on the ground\u201d. These humanitarian partners, he added, \u201care being forced to make a choice between being the \u2018voice of the voiceless\u2019 or being permitted to do their work at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Non-human by association<\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s also striking is that this effort to silence and dehumanise is applied to anyone who speaks up for Palestinians too.<\/p>\n

UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, has described herself as a \u201cnon-person\u201d<\/a> since the US government imposed sanctions on her last year. The punishing sanctions \u2013 which came days after she published a report accusing western corporations of being complicit in Gaza\u2019s genocide<\/a> \u2013 have left her unable to use credit cards or book hotels or flights. Her assets in the US \u2013 including her bank account and apartment \u2013 have been frozen. \u201cIt\u2019s important that people understand the extent\u2026the United States, Israel and others would go to silence the voice of justice, the voice of human rights\u201d Albanese said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Greta Thunberg \u2013 once courted by world leaders<\/a> and named person of the year by Time magazine in 2019 for her climate activism \u2013 has effectively been cancelled since raising her voice for Palestine. On her second attempt to reach Gaza via the Global Sumud Flotilla to deliver humanitarian aid, Thunberg was abducted by Israeli forces and taken to Ktzi\u2019ot Prison. Here, according to various statements<\/a> from Thunberg\u2019s fellow passengers and her own testimony<\/a>, she was tortured and sexually abused.<\/p>\n

The story \u2013 shocking both for what happened and who it happened to \u2013 was met with strikingly little coverage in western media. There were no condemnations from the world leaders so eager to be photographed with Thunberg five years ago. No opinion pieces in the mainstream media calling for an investigation and demanding justice for Greta. Nothing at all from Time magazine.<\/p>\n

And not a single mainstream media outlet reported the accusation of rape by German journalist Anna Liedtke<\/a> \u2013 who was also onboard the flotilla. During an international conference, the 26-year-old described having been raped by Israeli guards after resisting a forced strip search while she was detained. But again, not a whisper from our politicians or media.<\/p>\n

As horrifying as these revelations are, they offer only a glimpse into what it must be like to be a Palestinian living in the occupied territories. Following her assault in Israel, Greta Thunberg said<\/a>: \u201cIf Israel, with the whole world watching, can treat a well-known, white person with a Swedish passport this way, just imagine what they do to Palestinians behind closed doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gagged and dehumanised, Palestinians have been stripped of their basic right to tell their stories. The media may have fallen silent, but those of us who still have a voice cannot. Please don\u2019t stop talking about Gaza.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Sylvia Monkhouse is a copywriter and editor based in the UK. She has worked for numerous charities and non-profit organisations including Arts Council England, The Children\u2019s Society and the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). She is passionate about exposing the ways mainstream media supports the interests of western imperial power structures. Her articles have been published in <\/em>Counterpunch and <\/em>ZNetwork and various other progressive media outlets. Follow her on x.com\/SylviaMonkhouse<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Feb 2026 – Since the so-called ceasefire came into effect in Gaza, Israel has killed over 500 Palestinians. But these lives \u2013 according to western media and politicians \u2013 are not worth talking about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":302688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[3729,2314,87,865,1113,88,427,70],"class_list":["post-312982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-ceasefire","tag-corporate-media","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-hoax","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312983,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312982\/revisions\/312983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}