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Medical teams, soldiers and civilians arrived at the scene to inspect the area after the Israeli army targeted two vehicles with drones on the coastal road despite the ceasefire in Beirut, Lebanon on May 13, 2026. [Houssam Shbaro – Anadolu Agency]
Lebanese Red Cross President Antoine Zoghbi said the Israeli occupation forces have killed more than 100 paramedics and medical workers since the ceasefire took effect, condemning the continued targeting of emergency personnel.
In an interview with Cairo News Channel, Zoghbi said that since 14th April Israel has killed more than 3,080 people, including over 100 medical and ambulance workers.
He said rescue and medical teams now operate under extremely dangerous conditions, adding that there is “no real protection” for ambulances or medical personnel in either Gaza Strip or Lebanon.
“Our problem today is that we have become targets, as if we were combatants,” Zoghbi said, adding that Lebanese officials and humanitarian organisations continue raising the issue in international forums.
He described the attacks on medical personnel and facilities as “a crime against humanity”, noting that four hospitals are no longer operational and 16 others have been damaged or directly attacked.
Zoghbi also said more than 200 ambulances had been targeted during the same period.
He concluded that the figures reflect the scale of the humanitarian crisis, stressing that the casualties among civilians and medical workers had occurred within a relatively short timeframe despite the ceasefire agreement.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone …
This government chose not to bring in wealth taxes, not to implement rent controls, not to make the kind of public investment in council-housing that is needed to tackle the housing crisis, and chose not to redistribute resources from those who wield it to those who need it. It chose to give a top political job to a man with an established relationship to a convicted sex offender — a man who just so happened to pride himself on his opposition to our mass movement for social justice and peace.
Rather than rewriting the rigged rules of corporate Britain, the government also chose to blame a different group of people for the problems in our society: migrants and refugees. It went after the rights of migrants who have contributed so much to this country and demonised human beings seeking asylum. It mimicked the politics of Reform UK and rolled out the red carpet for Nigel Farage.
There is perhaps one political decision that will leave the greatest stain of all. As Israel embarked on the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza, this government could have defended international law and called for peace. Yet it chose to facilitate war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. And it chose to launch a systematic assault on the civil liberties of those who protested against the government’s complicity (alongside its outrageous decision to erode jury trials, the cornerstone of our justice system). This government’s enduring legacy will be its complicity and participation in the greatest crime of our age. And we will never, ever forget.
These decisions are the root cause of the chaos that Starmer is now trying to temper — and unless these root causes are addressed, we will continue to lurch from one political crisis to the next. It’s not enough for Starmer to go. What needs booting out is the politics he represents: corporate greed, anti-migrant policies and endless war.
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I haven’t heard anything from his main contenders about the need to end corporate greed, the need for rent controls, or the need for a mass redistribution of wealth and power. I certainly haven’t heard any calls for an investigation into British complicity in genocide — presumably because that investigation would implicate them as well.
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Keir Starmer … managed to hide the real record beneath his rhetoric: child poverty, inequality and genocide. Those are the government’s big decisions. And that is how this government will be remembered.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership is intensely relaxed about assaulting those least able to defend themselves – the very poorest and most vulnerable.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
While independent and alternative media wrought a change in US public opinion since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, mainstream media provided Israel with a coverup for its crimes. “This book does not make for easy reading,” Rashid Khalidi wrote in the introduction to Robin Andersen’s The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza (OR Books, 2026). While legacy media justified genocide and acted as a mouthpiece for Israel and the US, independent media illustrated genocide as it happened. As Israel’s genocide continued without political opposition, legacy and mainstream media framed Palestinians in Gaza and anyone opposing the genocide as “the villains of the story, rather than the war criminals who perpetrated these murders, and this destruction and starvation.”
Mainstream media portrayal of Israel’s genocide in Gaza followed not only a predictable sequence, but also one that became ingrained and fortified despite the countless times such reporting was debunked by facts.
One notable discrepancy, Andersen writes, is the readily available information from Israeli media itself on the start of the genocide. While Western journalism simplified the start of the genocide through Hamas’s infiltration and attack on Israel, Israeli media noted the military’s role in the killing of Israeli civilians, with testimonies from Israelis expressing anger at the military. Andersen notes that if US media had included Israel’s killing of its own citizens while implementing the Hannibal directive, “the rudimentary narrative structure would have lost a good deal of its persuasive value.”
Indeed, the simplistic narrative emphasised by US mainstream media required a starting point. October 7 provided the peg not only for supporting Israel’s genocide, but for obliterating the entire Zionist colonial history and appropriation of Palestinian territory. Without context, news became a series of events obfuscated and far removed from history. However, language still played an important role. As Andersen states, “Genocide does not happen without a language to incite it.” From the initial statements by Israeli officials, the media hastened to demonise Palestinians also by choosing to omit the accurate terminology which would have described Israel’s genocidal actions.
Leaked memos from legacy media showed the extent to which news was disseminated in a manipulated manner. Editorial directives controlled the narrative omitting genocide, even as genocide was livestreamed through alternative and social media.
Israel’s kill toll was questioned as rhetorical propaganda, while outlets such as CNN and the New York Times failed to attribute airstrikes to Israel. Language depicting Palestinians’ living conditions during the genocide also eliminated how Israel forcibly displaced Gaza’s population – neighbourhoods, instead of camps. Evidence of dead bodies was framed in assumptions that questioned realities, while Israel’s massacres at the so-called aid sites were described as “food-aid related deaths” by the Guardian, for example. The New York Times fared no better: “Death of Gazans Hungry for Food Prompt Fresh Calls for Ceasefire”.
Similar tactics were employed by mainstream media’s discussion of Israel’s bombing of Al-Shifa hospital. Focusing on Israel’s propaganda justifying the strikes – a Hamas command and control centre beneath the hospital – mainstream media linked Al-Shifa to war crimes, but not Israel. As happened during the start of the genocide, when many statements were debunked by alternative media, Israel’s narratives on al-Shifa proved to be false. However, mainstream media still relied on Israel’s official narrative, which were altered several times as independent investigations progressed. When Israel targeted a refugee camp and burnt Palestinians to death, CNN reported on what Israel told the Biden administration. “It’s what Israel said to us,” a US official stated to CNN. Language, in the context of Israel’s attacks on al-Shifa hospital, was even more ambiguous. Andersen quotes the New York Times, which frames the attacks within the language of natural disasters – al-Shifa “stood in ruins on Sunday, as if a tsunami had surged through it following a tornado.”
Andersen notes that for every instance of mainstream media’s manipulation of genocide for Israel’s benefit, alternative and independent media carried the investigations and answers to the public. From the initial disproven claims of beheaded babies that unleashed a frenzied support for Israel’s genocide, to claims of rape attributed to Hamas, independent media provided not only the proof of untruths, but also the network that supported the disseminated lies. Independent media also established the targeted killing of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, creating a sharp contrast between journalists covering genocide in real time, and mainstream reporters whose priority was to impart the Zionist narrative. Mainstream media’s refusal to mention targeted assassinations of Palestinian journalists contributes to Israel’s efforts to silence journalists reporting from Gaza – the only sources available also considering that Israel refused entry to international journalists. The tacit silence from mainstream media in the US contradicts the essence of journalism, all for preserving the continuation of genocide.
“The many examples of journalistic malpractice include in this book expose corporate media’s acquiesce to power and their abandonment of independence and the mandate to inform,” Andersen writes in the conclusion. Israel’s genocide in Gaza exposed the extending parameters of incitement, and the reach Zionism has at an international level. Mainstream media in the US contributed to a growing divide not only between media sources, but also in disrupting clarity – those that advocate for justice are now equated with terrorists, and those that defame people calling for justice are thriving in impunity.
The numerous examples Andersen cites in her extensive research of media reporting on Gaza call for a sobering scrutiny, not only on intent, but on the violation of language and its repercussions on Palestine, on Gaza, and on all people opposing colonialism and genocide.
Andersen notes that the manipulation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza had other precedents, such as the US war on Iraq which was based on fabricated claims of weapons of mass destruction. Within the Iraq context, however, mainstream media had issued public apologies for their propaganda. Andersen notes that none have been forthcoming so far with regard to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer confirms that he doesn’t know anything about democracy.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Relatives mourn during the funeral ceremony held for seven people, including a child, who were killed in an Israeli strike targeting the town of Al-Saksakiyyeh in Sidon, Lebanon on May 10, 2026. [Mohammad Abushama – Anadolu Agency]
Ten people were killed and eight others injured Tuesday in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, including two civil defense workers killed while carrying out a rescue mission in Nabatieh despite ceasefire, according to official Lebanese media, Anadolu reports.
An overnight Israeli airstrike targeting an inhabited house in Lebanon’s southern town of Kfar Dounine has killed at least six people and injured seven others, according to the National News Agency (NNA). The wounded were taken to hospitals in Tyre.
Israeli artillery shells also targeted the outskirts of the towns of Mansouri and Majdal Zoun at dawn.
In a separate incident, NNA reported that a Syrian man was killed and his wife wounded after an Israeli drone targeted their motorcycle on the Tayr Debba-Hammadiya road in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon.
Two paramedics, from the Nabatieh regional civil defense center, were killed in an Israeli strike while they were evacuating an injured person following an earlier Israeli raid in Nabatieh, said the agency.
A young civilian was also killed in the same strike, it added.
Since March 2, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 2,840 people, injured over 8,690, and displaced more than 1.6 million, about one-fifth of the population, according to the Lebanese officials.
The Israeli army continues daily strikes in Lebanon and fire exchanges with the Lebanese group Hezbollah despite a ceasefire that was announced on April 17 and extended until May 17.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Keir Starmer confirms that he doesn’t know anything about democracy.
