In a brief and poorly written article in the Telegraph, author Jake Wallis Simons has denied that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza.
If you’re wondering who Simons is, this is another one of his recent assertions:
If you needed any further evidence of how dangerously unhinged @JakeWSimons is and how gullible and racist the mainstream media believe their audience to be, then look no further. Shame on @BBCNewsnight @SkyNews and other outlets who platformed this modern day Julius Streicher. pic.twitter.com/2PsDF1w8Mo
— Fahad Ansari 🇵🇸 (Stop the Gaza genocide) (@fahadansari) October 19, 2025
Propaganda in the Telegraph
When we say the Telegraph article is poorly written, this is what we’re talking about:
The Gaza of reality remains largely eclipsed. But the hellscape of propaganda, which is as shallow as the false history upon which it is based, yet as profound as the worst human nightmare, is ubiquitous.
Honestly.
Poor phrasing aside, Gaza is unique for how well documented the genocide has been. At the same time, you could say the precise details ‘remain largely eclipsed’, and the reason for that is because:
As noted by the UN, the genocide has been the:
deadliest conflict ever for journalists.
More journalists have been killed in Gaza than both world wars, the Vietnam War, wars in Yugoslavia, and the war in Afghanistan combined, according to one research institute.
As Francesca mentioned, the U.N. number right now is 252, but that is, of course, likely to go up because every week we hear news of more killings.
In August alone, nine journalists were killed in three horrific bloody incidents, as you may remember.
Many of these 252 journalists have been targeted, by which we mean deliberately picked out and killed because of the work that they are doing to expose the atrocities, the crimes, the genocide on the ground.
Is this the “hellscape of propaganda”?
Or is it Simons who represents the “worst human nightmare”?
Denial
Getting to the denial, Simons writes:
OK. What about the “genocide”, which was officially confirmed by the UN in September (and made by the Syrians at the UN back in 1948)?
Aizenberg crunched the numbers. Taking the Hamas data at face value, setting aside natural deaths and those hit by their own side, about 33,000 civilians tragically died. According to mainstream estimates, about 25,000 combatants were killed.
This means that for every dead jihadi, fewer than 1.5 civilians lost their lives. According to the UN, the global average for warfare in populated areas – where there are no terror tunnels under hospitals, where the enemy does not generally deploy a strategy of human sacrifice – is nine civilians per combatant. Given that Israel has the firepower to wipe out everybody in Gaza in an afternoon, the evidence, again, speaks for itself.
While the writing here is less offensive, the content is significantly worse.
Firstly, estimates of the dead vary greatly, with the higher estimates standing at over half a million:
Gaza genocide death toll revised up – now over 680,000, including almost half a million children
Amid Israel’s destruction of Gaza, as many as 120,000 bodies remain unrecovered and therefore not included in the death toll, writes @skwawkbox https://t.co/io9QyY1W7D
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) September 12, 2025
As noted, journalists haven’t been allowed in, and it will be difficult to count the dead until Gazans can return to their bombed homes:
Journalist Marwa Muslim was killed by Israel and her body left for 44 days
Marwa Muslim and her brothers’ remains were discovered when people could finally reach her house – yet her story is one of so many. Palestinian journalist Alaa Shamali reports:https://t.co/cxZfBWAyPk
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) August 19, 2025
We’re note sure where Simons’ figures comes from, but they are at odds with even Israel’s. As reported by the Guardian:
As of May, 19 months into the war, Israeli intelligence officials listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or “probably dead”, a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found.
At that time 53,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks, according to health authorities in Gaza, a toll that included combatants and civilians. Fighters named in the Israeli military intelligence database accounted for just 17% of the total, which indicates that 83% of the dead were civilians.
Simons claims the standard ratio in war is “nine civilians per combatant”, but this is a myth. In fact, it’s such a common myth that it has its own Wikipedia page.
Even if it wasn’t a myth, would a statistic have justified what Israel did?
Of course it wouldn’t.
But Simons would rather eclipse that reality.
Genocide
Unsurprisingly, Simons doesn’t actually get into what the accusation of genocide encompasses. As the UN state in their verdict:
The Commission has been investigating the events on and since 7 October 2023 for the last two years, and concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
The four genocidal acts they observed are:
- Killing.
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm.
- Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part.
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births.
Their verdict is based on statements straight from the horse’s mouth:
Explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group.
And now you see why Simons’ article needed to be so brief and poorly worded.
Because if he wrote more, he’d eventually have to address the substantive accusations.
Benjamin Netanyahu is among those that the ICC has accused of war crimes – in part because of statements he made showing genocidal intent.
War Criminal Netanyahu has announced a plan to forcibly expel and ethnically cleanse the entire Palestinian population, flatten, and annex Gaza.
This comes after 64 days of blocking food and aid. This was always their plan.
The U.S. is an accomplice in this genocide. https://t.co/4FcxFI0VGr
— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) May 5, 2025
And guess what? Netanyahu also made the same ‘one afternoon’ comment as Simons:
Netanyahu said that Israel isn’t committing a genocide in Gaza because if “we had wanted to commit genocide, it would have taken exactly one afternoon.”
Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/Y4JRjuHA5t
— AF Post (@AFpost) August 12, 2025
Once again we find ourselves forced to behold the hellscape of propaganda.
Disgraceful from the Telegraph
We’d say that publishing this article is a shameful act for the Telegraph, but let’s face it, the British media ran out of shame a long time ago.
Figures like Simons will continue to write dross like this, but the time when people took them seriously has passed.
Jake Wallis Simons is not a serious man; the Telegraph is not a serious outlet, and Britain is not a serious country – not as long as they continue to support the greatest atrocity of the 21st century they’re not.
While it’s sickening to see people showing such inhumanity, just remember: they’re only pushing so hard because they know they’ve lost.
Featured image via screengrab
