"Palestinians in Gaza are being targeted and killed by airstrikes, gunshots, and tanks, as well as fatal conditions that have caused death from lack of medicine, starvation, dehydration, and malnutrition. By using such words, you also absolve completely the reality of Gazans."
March 14, 2024
To:
Raffy Boudjikanian, Reporter, CBC News,
Nancy Waugh, Sr. Manager, CBC News
Dear Raffy Boudjikanian and Nancy Waugh,
I am writing to express concern for the news segment: “Aid ship heads to Gaza, but advocates warn more is needed,”published on March 12 on CBC News.
First, reporter Raffy Boudjikanian says: “Casting off from Cyprus, this boat is carrying much needed aid to war-torn Gaza that need so pressing...” However, he provides no other background context on Gaza when it would have been necessary to understand why aid is “much needed” and “pressing.”
Such words downplay Israel’s responsibility for the situation it has inflicted on Gazans, which has been ruled as a plausible genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). These words obfuscate the scale of Israel’s current military campaign in Gaza. Israel has killed civilians in Gaza with military tactics and equipment besides missiles and bombs. Palestinians in Gaza are being targeted and killed by airstrikes, gunshots, and tanks, as well as fatal conditions that have caused death from lack of medicine, starvation, dehydration, and malnutrition. By using such words, you also absolve completely the reality of Gazans.
You should have provided the number of Palestinians that have been killed since October 7 and mentioned how Israel has been blocking aid from getting into Gaza, although it is its responsibility as an occupying power to let aid in. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Michael Fakhri, even said Israel was using food and hunger as a weapon and that Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians. As of March 12, 2024, at least 27 Palestinians have died of malnutrition and dehydration. According to the UN, the hunger rate in Gaza is 100%.
I, therefore, ask you that in future reporting, you mention background information on the situation in Gaza, specifically Rafah, to not absolve Israel of its responsibility.
Second, your news segment does not raise a variety of issues connected to the solution of shipping aid through ships, such as:
- The quantity that will be shipped through ships
- The comparison – volume-wise, cost-wise, timewise, security-wise – to truck deliveries
- Israel’s role in preventing aid trucks from reaching Gaza (and inflicting starvation, which is a war crime, on Gazans) and how Canada can exercise pressure to make sure that aid trucks can enter Gaza and effectively exercise its international obligation of preventing genocide
- Whether or not this is simply a smokescreen to divert from the fact that Western countries are not doing enough to push Israel to let aid in through trucks and feel better about themselves
- Israel’s and Western countries' true intentions by sending ships and building a dock in Gaza, especially considering that it can crystallize Israel’s control of Gaza and, essentially, Palestinian land, which is illegal under international law and condemned by a lot of countries
- How it will affect Gaza’s fishing industry and amplify starvation
- The issue of distribution and how it can lead to inequity between Palestinians
As one of your own articles reports, “UN officials say it’ll be no substitute for delivering much-needed food by land.” Shipping aid through trucks is still less costly, more efficient, and less accident-prone than shipping aid through air or sea. Yet, this news segment makes it seem like Canada is doing something by adding on top of it that two Canadian brothers were able to escape Gaza.
I hope CBC News will consider my suggestions when reporting on aid shipping to Gaza in the future. The crisis in Gaza is extreme, and CBC reporting should emphasize – not ignore – this reality.
Sincerely,
Fatima Haidar,
Media Analyst, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East