Last week, Israel marked Holocaust Memorial Day. I’ve often wondered why my country commemorates the genocide of the Jewish people on a different day than the international observance in January, creating its own set of rituals and narratives.

I was reflecting on this as I arrived at the International Journalism Festival in Perugia. Flooded with memories of school ceremonies — standing in a crisp white shirt, inundated with stories of death camps and “rebirth” in the homeland — I was glad to find myself at a truly unique gathering where journalists from around the globe come together to showcase and discuss their work.

I attended with colleagues from +972 Magazine and Local Call, who spoke on panels about working as independent journalists in Israel in a time of genocide; about investigations that seek to hold Israeli leaders accountable; and about bearing witness as Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip.

Gaza was at the center of many discussions, alongside urgent questions about the situation in the West Bank, where ethnic cleansing is taking hold with unprecedented speed and magnitude. Moving between panels, I felt proud to be part of +972 Magazine and deeply troubled by what my country, Israel, is doing.

In one panel, Wael al-Dahdouh, bureau chief of Al Jazeera in Gaza City, spoke about finding his six-month-old grandson among the rubble. He described the feeling that he had betrayed his wife by surviving the Israeli airstrike that killed her.

It was all so awful, and yet strangely familiar. Listening to people recount their stories of enduring the genocide, I found myself on the side of the perpetrators, rather than the eternal victim Israelis are taught to see themselves as from an early age.

After Hamas’ attacks on southern Israel on October 7, the Israeli state and mainstream media did what they do so well with the memory of the Holocaust: weaponizing testimonies of trauma to rally and consolidate public sentiment. Meanwhile, the stories of the genocide taking hold in Gaza were largely absent from Israeli discourse.

At +972 Magazine, we have been challenging this absence, sharing testimonies from the ground in Gaza, both in the years before October 7 and consistently since the beginning of Israel’s onslaught in The Strip.

In the same panel, al-Dahdouh also cited a +972 investigation revealing that the Israeli military created a covert “Legitimization Cell” after October 7 to gather or shape intelligence linking Gaza journalists to Hamas, and to justify Israel’s conduct in Gaza as part of a public-relations campaign rather than direct security needs.

Attending the festival on behalf of +972 and Local Call was an extraordinary experience. Across panels and public events, colleagues thanked us for our work, saying they rely heavily on our reporting and analysis and value our presence in the international media landscape.

It was powerful to receive this support from our professional community and to see our team’s work recognized by peers around the world. You, our readers who support us day in and day out, make this work possible.