People walk among destroyed buildings in Gaza, as viewed from the Israel-Gaza border, March 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen/File Photo

Western media outlets love the “human angle” in their coverage of the war in Gaza. They seek personal stories about Palestinians’ deaths — parents, children or the elderly — to put faces on what otherwise looks like a mounting number of civilian casualties.

But they only highlight “human” stories if those deaths make Israel look like the aggressor.

That’s why the death of Oday Nasser Al Rabay, who was murdered by Hamas last week after protesting against the terror group, was not covered.

The 22-year-old Gazan had been kidnapped and tortured by Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades last weekend, his family said, adding that his mutilated body was left in front of their home.

Social media posts showed dozens of mourners at Al Rabay’s funeral shouting “Hamas out” and vowing revenge.

22-year-old Oday Nasser al Rabay protested Hamas’ tyranny. They tortured and executed him, dumping his body at his family’s door.

The media must get it right: These protests aren’t just “anti-war”—Gazans are risking their lives to defy terrorists. pic.twitter.com/u2q79VTCOX

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 30, 2025

Afterwards, according to social media, Al Rabay’s family gave a statement publicly blaming Hamas for his death.

According to Israeli media, Al Rabay participated in the protests along with hundreds of Gazans who took to the streets demanding an end to the war. Their show of anger lasted three days, but now seems to have died down — amid assessments in Israel that Hamas was intimidating protesters.

Meanwhile, Gazans said that five other protesters were also executed by the terror group.

None of this was covered by mainstream media, which were also slow to report on the rare protests against Hamas as they erupted last week.

The omission is blatant because the first social media posts about Al Rabay’s murder started to appear early on Sunday (March 30), and more circulated online since then. News agencies could have sent their freelancers to check it out, talk to the family, or write a story based on reports online.

But instead of covering it, respected news outlets were busy with the usual narrative: AP wrote about the possibility of Gaza bakeries shutting down, Reuters reported on Netanyahu vowing to pressure Hamas, and The Guardian ran a story about Gazans in Israeli jails who don’t know their families had been killed.

Aside from a story in The Telegraph, which is the exception that proves the rule, nothing was reported on Al Rabay’s death in the international media.

And if it wasn’t reported, it’s as if it never happened.

The human angle story of Oday Nasser Al Rabay simply did not serve the inhuman narrative against Israel.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.