Believed In Iran, Questioned In Gaza: How Power Decides Which Deaths Matter | world news

Killings in Iran vs killings in Gaza: Western media is facing a crisis of belief that depends less on evidence and more on whose suffering suits those in power. The problem is not a lack of facts, but whose facts are permitted to stand without interrogation.

For more than two years, every Palestinian death in Gaza has been questioned again and again. Each injury and each killing has been treated as something to question rather than accept. People kept asking whether the victims were real, whether they were truly dead, whether they were killed by bombs and bullets, whether they were civilians or whether they were somehow to blame for their own deaths.

Accounts from Palestinians watching their families die were dismissed. Reports from doctors operating without electricity were doubted. Testimony from people pulling children out of ruble was treated as emotionally charged and unreliable. Even the death toll released by the Gaza Health Ministry, acknowledged by international experts as a severe undercount, was declared as questionable.

By late 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that at least 70,117 Palestinians had been killed since the war began, with civilians forming the overwhelming majority. The United Nations and numerous independent researchers agree that this number captures only part of the devastation.

During the first nine months alone, deaths caused by traumatic injuries were estimated at around 64,000 (roughly 40 percent higher than the ministry’s own count). These numbers exclude deaths caused by starvation, untreated disease, dehydration and the collapse of sanitation systems.

Studies show that the death toll becomes much higher when indirect deaths are included. A July 2024 study published in The Lancet put the number at more than 186,000. Since then, bombs, bullets, hunger and preventable illness have taken many more lives.

The Health Ministry records deaths through hospital morgues, listing names and identification numbers. Only identifiable bodies are counted. In Gaza, many bodies are blown apart, buried under rubble or crushed beyond recognition. Every hospital in the Strip has been bombed or rendered inoperable at different points, leaving periods when even identifiable bodies could not be registered.

Western media continues to avoid stating the true scale of the killing. Even the reduced figures it publishes arrive wrapped in distancing language. The toll is “disputed by Israel”. It “cannot be independently verified”. It is “claimed” by a “Hamas-run health ministry”. The numbers rarely appear as established reality.

As the killing in Gaza continues at a slower pace under the banner of a “ceasefire”, another crisis of death has entered global headlines.

In Iran, people protesting against the regime have been met with lethal force. Coverage of these deaths follows a visibly different pattern. Often based on estimates produced by diaspora organizations such as the Human Rights Activists News Agency, death tolls emerging from Iran receive immediate acceptance. These organizations operate without ground access and without direct communication inside the country. Their numbers move quickly from estimates to headlines.

The CBS reported on Tuesday that “two sources, including one inside Iran”, told journalists that “at least 12,000 and possibly as many as 20,000 people have been killed”. The report stated that foreign journalists are barred from Iran and referenced widespread communication shutdowns. The figures were still treated as credible and newsworthy. The headline read, “Over 12,000 feared dead after Iran protests, as video shows bodies lined up at morgue.”

Images that once flooded screens from Gaza told a different story. Videos showing rows of corpses, footage of children burning alive in tents and photographs of mass graves never carried enough weight to establish Palestinian death tolls as fact.

This pattern extends far beyond one outlet.

Since protests began in Iran, Western media has embraced a more flexible understanding of what qualifies as reliable information during a crisis it cannot directly access. Numbers based on anonymous sources and distant networks are granted legitimacy with speed.

Carefully recorded under conditions of bombardment and siege, Palestinian deaths were treated with suspicion. Iranian deaths, relayed through opposition channels based thousands of miles away, receive confidence.

The explanation lies in political utility.

Deaths in Iran strengthen narratives that serve the interests of the United States. They support calls for pressure, intervention and regime change framed in the language of human rights and democracy. Each reported death becomes part of a familiar script.

This does not diminish the reality of Iranian suffering. People resisting the regime are dying. Their courage and lives matter. Their deaths deserve attention and care.

The problem lies in how their tragedy is amplified by media institutions that spent years refusing to believe Palestinians documenting their own destruction. Palestinians spoke of being hunted while waiting for aid. They described babies freezing and starving as tents, timber and formula were blocked from entering Gaza. They released thousands of names, including pages filled only with children under 16. The United Nations called these numbers the most credible available, even as underestimates.

Belief never arrived.

Palestinian deaths expose the violence, impunity and cruelty embedded in an international order anchored by the US power. Iranian deaths, which are inflicted by a government opposed by Washington, allow that same power to present itself as a rescuer.

Selective belief becomes a perfected practice. Iranian death tolls built on estimates and anonymous sources earn instant trust. Palestinian death tolls built on hospital records, morgues and names require endless verification. It reveals a collapse of moral consistency. Death is weighed according to political usefulness. Some bodies demand outrage and action, while others invite silence and skepticism.

Until Western media confronts its role in deciding which deaths are believable and which are disposable, it will remain deeply entangled in the violence it claims only to report.

(The opinions presented in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily represent the editorial position of Zee News)