ABSTRACT
Based on the analysis of 500 news articles in the British national press, this chapter examines the news coverage of the events that took place in the Gaza Strip between 1 April and 30 June 2021, when Palestinians protested against the decision of Israel’s Supreme Court to evict dozens of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah. These protests were followed by the storming of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Israeli police forces, the launching of rockets into Israel by Hamas, and the targeting of the Gaza Strip by Israeli airstrikes. Combining content analysis and critical discourse analysis of the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Daily Mirror, the Sun and the Daily Mail, the chapter explores two main aspects of the coverage: (1) the description of different forms of violence, from ‘terrorism’ and ‘war crimes’ to ‘apartheid’ and ‘occupation,’ and how some agents of violence were portrayed as more legitimate than others; and (2) how the clashes were situated in the broader historical conflict. The chapter concludes that journalists should take a more thematic approach to contextualise the conflict, in order to avoid the reductionist views that the British press often promotes.
