For the various news outlets, and their reporters on the ground in Gaza who are covering the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, life can sometimes be tricky.

Whereas in Israel, the only democracy in the middle east, reporters can report what they want when they want, in Gaza that isn’t the case. Hamas, the fundamental terrorist organisation which runs the Gaza Strip, do so with an iron fist, and that courtesy extends also to foreign reporters.

As a result of this totalitarian situation in Gaza the western media frequently has to report the things that Hamas wants it to report. For example, Hamas uses civilians as human shields as a strategy.

When they get caught in crossfire, or end up as collateral damage due to Hamas positioning them in vulnerable places, Israel gets condemned by the World.

Indeed, the loss of innocent Palestinian life is tragic, but takes on a slightly different essence if you consider the fact that in Palestinian society death and violence are normal, everyday things.

You may be surprised to read that last week 30 Palestinian civilians were brutally executed by Hamas in Gaza city, for allegedly collaborating with Israel.

Of course, western media reporters, from CNN, the BBC and Reuters were too busy looking for schools that the Israeli’s had bombed in their quest for Palestinian blood, and ignored the public Hamas massacre of its own citizens.

The media was too scared to report on the massacre, which wasn’t even hidden from them as it was carried out publicly, as the reporters were afraid of being targeted by Hamas gunmen who patrol the streets and watch carefully what reporters say.

This report from algemeiner.com from July 31, as another good illustration, leads with the headline: “Spanish Journalist on Why Hamas Never Photographed in Action: ‘If Ever We Dared Point Our Camera on Them They Would Simply Shoot at Us and Kill Us,'” and offers an insight into what foreign reporters in Gaza often need to put up with.

To make matters even more absurd, Hamas allowed Palestinian sources to openly report on the massacre of 30 of its own people in cold blood, as a message to other Palestinians not to collaborate with the enemy, Israel.

The execution of 30 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel was reported on by a number of media sources, including i24 News on July 29 as well as Jta.Org and Israelnationalnews.com.

So how and why could the western media miss such a vital news story, one full of so much blood and gore?

Taking the cynical view, could it be because Israel wasn’t the one doing the killing?

There is no question that something untoward is going on here as a terrorist organisation in Gaza manipulates public opinion through the media, while exploiting and murdering its own citizens and receiving no flack at all for it.

No doubt, when the dust settles, the numbers of civilians killed by Israel in the current round of conflict will also turn out to be far fewer than currently claimed. This having been the case after every Gaza war so far. (Take Jenin as an example.)

The mere fact that the western media has accepted blindly the figures issued by a body controlled by Hamas, the Palestinian heath authority, is a damning indictment of the media bias so often on display.

The media often focuses on the Palestinian civilian casualties without asking, or seemingly caring, what is the cause of them.

Here is an insightful video clip from NDTV showing Hamas operatives setting up a rocket launching site next to a hotel in Gaza, proving that Hamas purposely fires from within densely populated civilian areas, essentially endangering their population: