MADRID - More than 200 Palestinians were killed and at least 400 were wounded during a Zionist incursion in central Gaza, according to data from the Gaza Government Media Office. The military attacks, some of the deadliest since October, targeted the Nuseirat and Deir el-Balah refugee camps in central Gaza. Doctors describe the scenes inside Al-Aqsa Hospital as a "complete massacre."

In a brief statement, the Zionist occupation army stated that its forces were "targeting terrorist infrastructure in the Nuseirat area." Subsequently, they announced that their forces had rescued four captives during the operation in Nuseirat. According to the colonial occupation army, the four individuals, who were taken to Gaza after the Hamas-led attack in southern Israel on October 7, were in "good health."

At this point, we know through Western media the names, ages, photos, and stories of each of the four Israelis who were rescued from Gaza, but no one knows the name, let alone the story, of any of the more than 200 Palestinians whom Israel massacred in the process. This is part of the dehumanization process that Palestinians have been experiencing since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

This dehumanization is constructed through selective discourse aimed at portraying Palestinians as "collateral damage," often using openly colonial language that facilitates the justification of violence against those portrayed as "less human".

An example of this language was the headline in The New York Times (NYT) echoing the Zionist attack and the rescue of the four prisoners.

The headline is a perfect example of the role of Western media in what is known as the manufacturing of consent for genocide. This entails manipulating public opinion through propaganda by major Western media outlets. The media language fuels Islamophobic and pro-Zionist propaganda in its coverage of events in Gaza. One of the most common tactics to achieve this is through selective moral outrage, which conceals the pain and suffering of the Palestinian people, as well as the structural injustices, such as the Zionist occupation of Palestine, which explain the origin of Hamas' response on October 7th.

In The New York Times headline, it's clear how the active voice is consistently used when referring to Israel, for example, "the Israeli army rescues 4 hostages." Conversely, Palestinians are always represented using the passive voice, "have died." This use of the passive voice by the American reference newspaper serves to ignore the principle of authorship of these deaths. In other words, the passive voice attempts to present the reality without focusing on the "who" did this to the Palestinians. Without considering this authorship, the information cannot be complete. According to this linguistic usage, one could say that Palestinians died spontaneously, without anyone being responsible. The passive voice often focuses on the recipient of the event, not the one who performs it.

Furthermore, in the headline, we can observe how the facts presented by the authorities in Gaza, the more than 200 killed due to the Israeli attack, are not presented as an indisputable fact, but rather as an opinion ("Gaza authorities say hundreds have died"). This way of wording is, of course, not neutral but rather part of the entire linguistic-ideological complex aimed at maintaining the humanity of Israelis ("4 Israelis rescued"), contrasted with the dehumanization of Palestinians (“scores”).
This is what the manufacturing of consent for genocide implies: not only a distortion of reality or bad faith but also the intent to dehumanize one group of people in comparison to another, with the goal of making their deaths considered acceptable.

The signs of annihilation first appear in language. Therefore, civilized states and international organizations, liberals and conservatives, as well as university presidents and donors from the United States, have all lined up to participate in this discourse. Its colonial order is clear: it contains not a single dignifying reference to Palestinians. This is not a coincidence. Before they can be annihilated, Palestinians must be discursively transformed into barbaric monsters.

This order of discourse, which Western society (understood not merely as a collection of states or a geographical location, but rather as a moral project that continues to violently universalize itself) has already constructed regarding other colonized and enslaved peoples, portrays Palestinians as inherently culpable. This discourse modelizes them as enemies of all, an enemy that must be crushed.

Finally, it is important to note that, according to journalistic sources close to the White House, the American hostage unit deployed in Israel reportedly participated in the Zionist attack on Saturday, June 9th. Images published by an Israeli occupation soldier confirm Israel's use of the temporary American pier in central Gaza during its offensive operations in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp. Reports from Gaza also indicated that the unit infiltrated the camp inside a truck carrying humanitarian aid from the floating pier.

A statement issued by the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) sought to deny its involvement in the Israeli operation, stating that "the facilities of the humanitarian pier, including its equipment, personnel, and assets, were not used in the operation to rescue hostages today in Gaza. An area south of the facility was used by the Israelis to safely return the hostages to Israel." However, images published by Zionist occupation soldiers clearly showed that the helicopter was inside the pier and not in the southern area.

Therefore, the direct involvement of the United States in the genocide in Gaza underscores the idea that both the United States and Israel share the same racist objective of colonization and expulsion or annihilation of the native Palestinian population. The only difference lies in how they communicate this objective to their respective audiences.