On October 24, during the Gaza ceasefire, Israel National News reported that the IDF “eliminates” people it called terrorists in two incidents at Gaza’s ‘yellow line’. Middle East Eye reported the same day that Israeli forces killed a woman and a man in Gaza. Five words, and the dead appear only as a verdict. “Terrorists” sits where a number, a name or an age would sit, and the page cites no IDF statement, spokesperson or post, so the label belongs to no one and arrives as the outlet’s own word. The single line underneath says “eliminates” twice and “killed” never. That is the euphemism doing its work: a soft verb for a shooting, so the reader feels a job done rather than a death. The tell: a verdict noun standing where the dead person’s name or count should be, with nobody’s name attached to the verdict. Used as the name of the dead, story after story, the label starts to feel like a fact, the habit of believing what is said often enough. Nothing on the page says how many died, who they were, or where beyond the ‘yellow line’. A plain sentence on these facts would read: the IDF says its forces killed people who crossed the ‘yellow line’ in two incidents. The same eyes go to the other side. Middle East Eye’s headlines name a woman and a man and give the shot to “gunfire”; its own first sentence says Israeli forces shot the woman, reportedly inside a school shelter in Khan Younis. Press TV puts ceasefire in sneer quotes. No page here ties Middle East Eye’s two dead to Israel National News’s two incidents, so the coverage leaves open whether these are the same people. Each word chooses the reader’s feeling before the facts arrive.
