The Media Accountability Project  

In fact, since October 2025, mainstream media language has increasingly relied on euphemisms that manufacture the appearance of a meaningful ceasefire in Gaza where none exists.

A ceasefire, as defined by Doctors Without Borders, is “an agreement that regulates the cessation of all military activity for a given length of time in a given area.” By definition, a ceasefire implies an end to violence. That is not the reality in Gaza.

As your article highlights, Meera (like many other Palestinians) was accepted into a Canadian university, only to have her semester deferred three times because of Israel’s closure of the Rafah crossing that made it impossible for her to complete biometrics and, in turn, meet Canadian immigration requirements.

However, the article should have also noted that Iran’s economic crisis did not emerge suddenly. The current economic turmoil has been building since 1979 due to decades of UN, EU and US-led sanctions against Iran. The sanctions have affected nearly every aspect of the Iranian economy with the greatest impact on the middle class. Sanctions on Iran have also frozen Iranian assets and targeted trade, arms sales, and sectors such as energy, finance, aviation, shipping, construction, mining, textiles, automotive and manufacturing.

I appreciate that the Associated Press, and by extension CBC News, reported on Israel’s approval of 764 additional housing units in three illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank. We are seeing increased coverage of Israel’s illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank, and it is coverage we have not seen at this level before.

As our national news station, CBC has an important responsibility to ensure that Canadians understand Israel’s role as an occupying power and its impact on Palestinian lives and the economy in the West Bank. By all means, continue to tell the stories that celebrate small glimmers of hope for Palestinians. However, these hopeful stories must include the necessary context of Israel’s genocide, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement that is the daily reality for Palestinians - so as not to obscure the ongoing occupation.

Despite the clarity of the footage, the article repeatedly states that the men only “appeared” to surrender, manufacturing doubt for no reason other than to plant uncertainty in the reader’s mind about what is a self-evident illegal public execution.

I am concerned about the words that CBC uses in this and other reports to describe the status of the ceasefire that began on October 10. Rarely is any information provided to describe the ways in which the ceasefire has been violated since it began on October 10.

At minimum, the segment should have acknowledged that many of the Palestinian bodies previously returned have shown signs of torture, malnutrition, and abuse, some discovered blindfolded for days.

Your article provides eight instances of Israeli denials of violations, giving a platform to an accused criminal state to defend itself at great length. Meanwhile, it provides little detail on the extensive evidence of war crimes and the "catastrophic conditions" that led the UN's top court to issue its ruling.