SINCE January 20, 2025, the world has closely watched the exchange of captives between Israel and Hamas. This ceasefire 鈥� despite its fragility and Israel鈥檚 repeated violations 鈥� took effect on January 19, 2025. It marks a critical moment that underscores the immense physical and psychological toll the genocide has inflicted on both sides. The first swap saw 3 Israelis and 90 Palestinians released. Five days later, a second swap took place, with four Israelis exchanged for 200 Palestinians. On January 30, 2025, another 3 Israelis were freed by Hamas, prompting the release of 110 Palestinians, including 30 minors. The fourth and fifth exchanges occurred on February 1 and 8, respectively, with 6 Israelis and approximately 360 Palestinians being freed. These exchanges were widely covered by international media outlets.
However, the media coverage surrounding the release of Israeli and Palestinian captives revealed stark disparities in how each group was portrayed. These discrepancies highlight the biased nature of media reporting and its tendency to dehumanise Palestinians in the eyes of the global audience. Western media outlets, including The New York Times, BBC, and CNN, devoted extensive coverage to the Israeli captives. These reports delved into their lives, backgrounds, and the emotional toll of their experiences. The stories framed these individuals as human beings with families, emotions, and rights that had been denied during their captivity. Coverage often highlighted their deprivation of basic rights, such as contact with their families and access to medical care.
In contrast, reports on Palestinian captives were sparse and frequently lacked any humanising detail. Palestinian captives were often reduced to mere statistics, with little or no effort made to share their personal stories. While Israeli captives were presented as individuals with names, families, and emotional depth, Palestinian captives were frequently referred to as 鈥榩risoners鈥� or 鈥榙etainees,鈥� with little attention given to their suffering or the lifelong struggles they endure. The imbalance in coverage was glaring: the names and faces of Israeli captives were widely shared, while the Palestinian captives remained largely anonymous.
The implicit message conveyed by Western media is that Israeli lives are inherently more valuable than Palestinian lives. By focusing heavily on Israeli captives 鈥� framing them as individuals with full lives, families, and dreams 鈥� the media reinforces the notion that Israeli suffering deserves global attention and worldwide sympathy. In contrast, Palestinians are often depicted as less human, their suffering minimised or ignored. This narrative feeds into the larger, harmful perception that Palestinians are disposable, that their pain is inconsequential, and that their lives are less significant than those of Israelis.
Palestinian captives, like their Israeli counterparts, are individuals with their own stories, struggles, and pain. They are fathers, mothers, children, teachers, students, and freedom lovers 鈥� each representing an individual universe filled with hardship, love, and loss. Just as Israeli captives have families who grieve for them, Palestinian captives leave behind families who live in perpetual uncertainty and fear for their loved ones. Palestinian captives are not faceless statistics; they are human beings deserving of recognition and empathy, just as Israeli captives are.
The bias in reporting becomes even more apparent when analysing the terminologies used by Western media. When Israeli captives were released, there was widespread attention paid to their physical condition, with reports describing them as 鈥榚maciated,鈥� 鈥榳eak,鈥� and 鈥榝rail-looking.鈥� These descriptions were often accompanied by emotional interviews with the freed hostages and their families, who were portrayed as devastated by their experiences. In contrast, when Palestinian captives were freed, mainstream media showed little interest in their physical or emotional condition. Many Palestinian prisoners were in far worse physical condition, having suffered from prolonged periods of torture, inadequate medical care, and deprivation of basic necessities like food and clean water.
It is important to note that Palestinian detainees are held in the prison system of one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a country with ample resources to provide for its captives. Conversely, Hamas kept the Israeli captives in Gaza 鈥� the epicentre of a livestream genocide 鈥� that is blockaded by Israel and has been denied access to the most basic necessities, including food items, since 2007! If the Israeli and Western media want to complain about Israeli captives not being well-fed in the midst of mass bombardment and starvation of an entire population, why not pressure the Israeli government to lift the Gaza blockade and allow more food into the region instead? After all, literally everyone in Gaza is hungry and grappling with food insecurity. That is because, on top of the crippling siege, Israel was blocking all forms of humanitarian aid into the strip during the genocide.
Indeed, some of the Palestinian captives released were found to be in critical condition, requiring immediate hospitalisation. Yet, these stories garnered little global sympathy. No major Western media outlet reported the severity of the conditions faced by Palestinian captives with the same focus given to the condition of Israeli captives. Words like 鈥榚maciated鈥� and 鈥榳eak鈥� were rarely used to describe Palestinian captives. Instead, the media focused primarily on the political significance of the exchanges, often overlooking the health and well-being of the individuals involved. This highlights the systemic disregard for Palestinian lives and reinforces the disparity in how both groups are perceived and valued.
It is hard to ignore the glaring bias and prejudice in Western media coverage. The narrative promoted prioritises the humanisation of Israeli captives, relegating their Palestinian counterparts to faceless statistics. This stark difference reflects the broader dynamics of power, politics, and media influence that shape global perceptions of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Palestinians鈥攚hether prisoners or not鈥攁re no less human than Israelis. They, too, have names, dreams, and loved ones. Like you and me, they laugh, grieve, and experience moments of triumph and setback. But beyond these shared experiences, the Palestinian captives symbolise hope, resilience, resistance, and liberation. Perhaps the Israeli and Western media 鈥� with all their power and money 鈥攆ear this strength, knowing it threatens their hegemonic, colonialist agenda. That is why they work relentlessly to suppress the Palestinian narrative.
Anyone who follows the news critically, compares multiple sources, and applies intellectual rigour without personal bias will easily recognise the one-sided nature of reporting on the captive exchanges. There are two captivities, but only one story is told 鈥� a story that renders the other invisible and nameless.
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Dr Raudah Yunus is a researcher, public health specialist, and social activist currently pursuing a postdoctoral fellowship in the United States.
