Palestinians evacuate the area following an Israeli airstrike on the Sousi mosque in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. Images of suffering, violence and death in Gaza

• So far, Israel has killed more than 19,000 innocent civilians, half of them children and more than 3,000 women
• Israeli cruelty has been such that its military bulldozers even wrecked several burial grounds and even buried living civilians in the Kamal Adwan Hospital courtyard

Sri Lanka’s mainstream media has miserably failed to highlight the ongoing US-European-backed Israeli genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Thereby, they denied the right of the readers to know the truth.   
There were a few feature articles analysing the worst-ever war crime since World War II. However, the daily killings and maiming of innocent Palestinian men, women, children and newborn babies, the flattening of more than 85 per cent of the residential buildings besides the destruction of hospitals, schools and essential services never found any place in the local media.   

Israeli genocide in Gaza by air, sea and land began in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 to free their lands occupied by Israel to restore their rights and dignity. So far, Israel has killed more than 19,000 innocent civilians, half of them children and more than 3,000 women. Since Oct 7 Israel displaced more than 85 per cent of the population of 2.3 million and deprived them of water, food, electricity, fuel, medicine and other essential items. 

 
Israeli cruelty has been such that its military bulldozers even wrecked several burial grounds and even buried living civilians in the Kamal Adwan Hospital courtyard,” according to Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila.   
The United States, the sole superpower and the so-called champion of human rights, stand fully behind this genocide, supplying sophisticated weapons, providing financial and diplomatic support and blocking numerous United Nations resolutions calling for a ceasefire to end the indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians.   

In the entire West, while governments support Israel’s genocide, people in general support the just Palestinian cause. So much so, young Americans are so fed up with their government’s support of Israeli war crimes that more than 30 per cent of them are demanding the dismantling of the artificial state of Israel itself planted on Palestinian soil.   

In the entire West, while governments support Israel’s genocide, people in general support the just Palestinian cause

People all over the world including Sri Lanka-Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and others coming out in mass protests, including in the US and European capitals, demanding Israel stop killing and starving Palestinians to death. Media worldwide, except pro-Jewish Western media, continue to provide wide coverage. 

 
However, what is happening in Gaza seems to be not newsworthy for the local media. Sri Lankan media in general depends on the Jewish-owned and pro-Israeli western media for its coverage of international affairs. This mindset also contributed to the failure of the local media to provide a true picture of the ongoing Israeli barbarity in Gaza. The irony is this also included television networks which claim to cover local and international developments.   
Some senior journalists attributed this to the ignorance and indifference of journalists while others suggested that such a news blackout was influenced by Israeli and US European embassies in Colombo.   

Israeli Embassy influencing the media in the island is not something new. For example, they succeeded in doing so during the June 1967 US-European backed Israel war during which Israel captured Egypt’s Gaza and Sinai desert, Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem, Syria’s Golan Heights and part of South Lebanon.   
On the other hand the local media in general, except a few, also refuse to entertain articles providing the true picture depriving the readers of the right to know what is happening in the world.

Journalist reporting on Gaza war