In conflict reporting, the question is rarely only about what happened. It is also who gets to explain what happened. The findings here suggest that the answer to that question often shapes the story that audiences ultimately receive.
During the summer of 2025, at least 1,373 Palestinians were killed while trying to access food at aid distribution sites in Gaza, yet coverage of the same killings looked radically different depending on which outlet one read. A study of 158 articles across four major news organisations found that sourcing decisions often shaped whether those deaths were narrated as a humanitarian atrocity, a crowd-control incident, or a necessary response to disorder. The answer may lie in a routine editorial choice: who gets to explain the violence.
In the summer of 2025, Palestinians were being shot while trying to reach food. The aid distribution sites established across Gaza under a US and Israeli-backed scheme were intended to ease a deepening hunger crisis. Instead, people were being killed trying to reach them. By the end of July, the United Nations estimated that at least 1,373 Palestinians had been killed at or near those sites since late May.
Anyone following the story through different news outlets could have come away with very different explanations of what had happened. Some reports focused on starvation, blockade, and the desperation that brought crowds to those sites in the first place. Others focused on crowd disorder, security concerns, and Israeli military explanations for the shootings.
To understand why the same events were being explained so differently, I examined all 158 articles published between 27 May and 31 July 2025 by Al Jazeera English, Al Arabiya English, BBC, and The New York Times. What emerged was less a simple divide between Arab and Western media than a recurring question about who was allowed to explain the violence.
The Same Event, Rewritten by Its Sources
The most striking finding had nothing to do with which outlet was more sympathetic to Palestinians or more favourable to Israel, but with who was allowed to explain what happened.
A New York Times article published on July 19 reported that Israeli soldiers had fired warning shots after Palestinians approached them and “did not comply with an order to halt". In the same article, Mohammed al-Hato, 33, said: “All I wanted was a sack of flour.” This was the same article describing the same killings, yet two very different explanations of what happened emerged.
Across the sample, articles relying exclusively on Israeli sources included justification frames in 96.6% of cases. Among articles relying exclusively on Palestinian sources, that figure was just 2.7%.
Across the sample, articles relying exclusively on Israeli sources included justification frames in 96.6% of cases. Among articles relying exclusively on Palestinian sources, that figure was just 2.7%.
The differences were not limited to what sources said but extended to how the shootings themselves were explained. Israeli officials tended to explain the shootings through the language of security threats, crowd control, and warning fire. Palestinian witnesses, medical workers, and officials explained them through hunger, aid shortages, and the dangers civilians faced trying to reach food. When only one side was asked to explain what happened, the resulting story often reflected that choice.
The pattern was visible at the outlet level too. More than a third of articles published by the BBC and The New York Times relied exclusively on Israeli sources. Among Al Jazeera English and Al Arabiya English, Israeli-only sourcing was almost non-existent. Those outlets relied far more heavily on Palestinian witnesses, officials, and medical workers.
This is not necessarily about intent, as journalists covering fast-moving events often depend on whoever is available and perceived as authoritative. But sourcing and framing are closely connected. Decisions about who is quoted and whose account is treated as credible shape the explanation that ultimately reaches readers.
A Name Is Not Enough
One of the assumptions behind many discussions of Gaza coverage is that humanising victims and justifying violence move in opposite directions. If an article names victims, describes their families, and tells readers something about who they were, it is often assumed the coverage will be more sympathetic to them.
The differences were not limited to what sources said but extended to how the shootings themselves were explained. Israeli officials tended to explain the shootings through the language of security threats, crowd control, and warning fire. Palestinian witnesses, medical workers, and officials explained them through hunger, aid shortages, and the dangers civilians faced trying to reach food. When only one side was asked to explain what happened, the resulting story often reflected that choice.
A BBC article published on July 25 showed how complicated that assumption can be. The piece named Abdullah Jendeia, 19, who “loved football” and had “dreams of opening a new business after the war". It also named Sela Mahmoud, 8, whose last words were “I want to eat a whole bowl of lentils until I’m full.” Both were killed while trying to access food. Yet the same article carried an IDF statement explaining that troops had fired warning shots “to remove an immediate threat". Personalisation and justification appeared side by side in the same story.
BBC included personal details about Palestinian victims in 73.3% of its articles. The New York Times did so in 68.1%. Al Jazeera English did so in 73.9%. These three outlets were broadly similar, but the real outlier was Al Arabiya English, which included personal details in only 34.3% of its coverage.
Yet personalisation did not necessarily alter the way the deaths were framed. Many of the same BBC and New York Times articles that named Palestinian victims and described their families also carried explanations that framed the shootings as responses to crowd disorder or security threats.
Humanisation and justification were not mutually exclusive. A victim could be named and individualised while still appearing inside a narrative that presented the circumstances of their death as understandable.
The Unexpected Split Inside Arab Media
Looking only at differences between Arab and Western media misses part of the picture, as important differences also emerged within Arab media itself.
An Al Jazeera English article centred on the stories of Ahmed Shaat, Khalil al-Khatib, and Mustafa Abu Eid, using family testimony and famine conditions to explain why Palestinians continued to risk their lives for food. An Al Arabiya English article covering another aid-site shooting also reported 32 Palestinian deaths and quoted eyewitness Mohammed al-Khalidi, but it additionally incorporated the Israeli military’s explanation of the events. The contrast suggests that coverage of Gaza’s aid-site killings was not divided neatly into Arab and Western narratives.
The broader pattern reflected those differences. Al Arabiya English included justification frames in 42.9% of its coverage, substantially more often than Al Jazeera English and closer to the levels observed in the Western outlets. What the findings show is that the category “Arab media” conceals important variation. The divisions in Gaza coverage did not stop at the boundary between Arab and Western outlets.
What the findings show is that the category “Arab media” conceals important variation. The divisions in Gaza coverage did not stop at the boundary between Arab and Western outlets.
What This Means for Conflict Reporting
The findings suggest that who gets quoted matters because different sources often provided fundamentally different explanations for the same event, and those explanations appeared to shape how the shootings were understood across outlets.
The coverage of Gaza’s aid-site killings also shows how difficult it is to separate sourcing from framing, since the people quoted in a story often help define what happened, why it happened, and who is seen as responsible. When different outlets rely on different sources, they can end up telling very different stories about the same event.
More than a third of articles published by BBC and The New York Times relied exclusively on Israeli sources. Among Al Jazeera English and Al Arabiya English, Israeli-only sourcing was almost non-existent.
The same is true of victim personalisation. Naming victims and documenting their lives can humanise suffering, but as the coverage examined here suggests, it does not necessarily determine how that suffering is explained. A victim can be named, remembered, and mourned while still appearing in a narrative that presents the circumstances of their death as understandable.
In conflict reporting, the question is rarely only about what happened. It is also who gets to explain what happened. The findings here suggest that the answer to that question often shapes the story that audiences ultimately receive.
