THE latest Israeli assassination, of six Palestinian journalists, has resulted in worldwide condemnation. Al Jazeera identified the attack as part of a systematic campaign to silence the truth.

The bombing attack on the Nasser hospital in the Gaza city of Khan Younis earlier this week killed Al Jazeera photographer Mohammad Salama. A runaway social media meme showed a dusty battered digital camera with the legend “Israel fears the truth.”

This attack was among the opening rounds of Israeli’s offensive to bisect Gaza by occupying Gaza City which is the home of over two million people.

Israel has told its inhabitants to leave or be treated as combatants, as if the distinction between armed Palestinians and civilians ever informs its tactical decisions.

As demonstration of the disregard with which the IDF holds the lives of civilians it deployed its infamous “double tap” technique of following up a strike on a civilian target with another one just as rescuers, reporters, photographers, anxious families and the emergency services arrive. Twenty-one died.

Benjamin Netanyahu compounded his responsibility for the assassinations and the collateral damage with a hypocritical statement that said he “deeply regrets the tragic mishap” at the hospital and that Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff and civilians.

As a measure of the value Israel places on the work of journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists has recorded that as of this last week and over the last two years 197 journalists have been killed in Gaza.

Because Israel does nor permit foreign journalists to report from Gaza, almost all the journalists killed there are Palestinians. These people work in impossible conditions. Last October Al Jazeera’s bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh was live on camera when he learned an Israeli air strike had killed his wife, two children and a grandson.

BBC coverage of the Gaza war naturally reflects its status as an instrument of Establishment opinion and approaches every challenge to its illusory impartiality with all the institutional power available.

In the first instance, this “impartiality” is enforced by the management imperative to remove from a story any journalist who express criticism. Nevertheless, professional concern at the rigid conventions surrounding reporting of war in which Britain, its Nato allies and other states in the imperial arc have appeared with more than 200 BBC staff anonymously signing a protest letter.

War reporting carries real dangers to the lives of journalists, but not if they are confined to Israel or only allowed into Gaza on under the intense supervision of the IDF.

The most substantial danger is to their reputation. For the BBC this is a battle that has been lost. In June this year the Centre for Media Reporting concluded that the BBC is systematically biased against Palestinians in this one-sided war.

Its analysis of 35,000-plus pieces of BBC content shows Israeli deaths given 33 times more coverage per fatality and significantly more emotive language.

BBC used emotive terms four times more for Israeli victims, applied “massacre” 18 times more to Israeli casualties, and used “murder” 220 times for Israelis vs once for Palestinians while BBC presenters shut down genocide claims in over 100 documented instances while making zero mention of Israeli leaders’ genocidal statements, including Netanyahu’s biblical Amalek reference.

It will have not escaped the attention of Morning Star readers that this paper holds itself to a higher standard.

Instead of a performative display of impartial tone and style behind which a ruthless internal regime enforces conformity our solidarity with the Palestinians is coupled with active and partisan reporting that serves the cause of peace with justice. That is why, for “balance” and “impartiality,” the Morning Star is largely invisible to BBC audiences.