Israel persists in its plan for a large-scale offensive in Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians are hiding, despite further international warnings on Thursday and negotiations in the background for a truce in Gaza with Hamas. In a telephone call, Emmanuel Macron told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday that Israel’s operations in Gaza “must stop” because “the human toll and the humanitarian situation” are “intolerable”, the Élysée reported.
“In media terms, Israel is already guilty in advance”
The daily images of Palestinian civilians displaced or killed contribute to the degradation of Israel’s image in the world. According to Georges Bensoussan, historian and author of the book The origins of the Arab-Israeli conflictguest of La Grande interview Europe 1-CNews on Thursday, “the media battle has been lost by Israel for 50 years already”.
“Israel’s image is very degraded, the media battle is lost by Israel but it has been lost for 50 years already. It was already degraded before October 7. There was a brief improvement in this image in the days that followed. followed on October 7 and things deteriorated very quickly. On the media level, Israel is already guilty in advance. It is obvious that in such a densely populated area like Gaza, there are bound to be civilian casualties. These are damaging losses, of course, but was there an intention on the part of the Israelis to kill these civilians? No. In other words, if they had the intention of killing them, they would not have warned the population of leave”, he declared at the microphone of Europe 1.
“The State of Israel is not carrying out a genocidal operation”
The hypothesis of a genocidal operation should therefore be ruled out according to Georges Bensoussan. “[Cette hypothèse] is totally crazy. The International Court of Justice reported this. Since she does not even order a ceasefire to the State of Israel, this is a sign that she knows very well that the State of Israel is not carrying out an operation genocidal. She simply warns, and she is right to warn on this,” he said.
In retaliation for the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the death of more than 1,160 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data, the Hebrew state has sworn to “destroy” the organization that he considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union, and launched an offensive which left 28,576 dead in Gaza, the vast majority civilians, according to the latest overall assessment Wednesday from the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health.
“Media representation in the West [donne] the feeling that the war is bogging down, getting bogged down and achieving nothing. In reality, no, Hamas is losing the war,” the historian concluded.