The mention of mass graves is so deeply disturbing that it's preferable to think of such wartime horrors as dark remnants of another era, chapters of history we'll never repeat. The Armenian genocide, the Bolshevik revolution, Nazi Germany, El Salvador, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The fairy tale that the human race has evolved beyond such barbarism was shattered (again) last week when reports surfaced that three mass burial sites had been unearthed in Gaza. The shocking development should have made headlines, but it barely made it onto most people's radars.

The media are instead hyper-focused on how we protest atrocities rather than the atrocities themselves.

Anti-war demonstrations on college campuses dominate conversations and coverage about the Israel-Hamas war. Every imaginable news source — legacy print outlets, user-generated posts, broadcast and cable news — has its sight set on the encampments and rallies breaking out on campuses across the nation.

The protests are worthy in their own right for drawing attention to critical issues. They've raised awareness (and hackles) around the staggering Palestinian death toll, antisemitism, occupation, the oft-forgotten hostages and free speech. The largely peaceful demonstrations, dealt with ineptly at best by university heads and law enforcement, are rightfully the leading national story, and its stars are a generation that many older folks had written off as apathetic.

In SEO terms, the protests present the perfect setting for a media blitz. They're taking place at colleges and they come with powerful images and ample social media content. As an example, protests at USC unfolded live on television across various local stations, with choppers capturing the action from every imaginable angle. They're also an easier way into the war, bringing the Mideast conflict home to America without the horror of witnessing a real battle.

But blanket coverage of the uprising by students is so omnipresent, it's overshadowed news from the very war they're protesting.

There's been a stunning lack of coverage and outrage following an announcement Friday by Palestinian authorities that they'd uncovered 390 bodies from mass grave sites around Gaza's Nassar and Shifa hospitals, facilities that were raided and destroyed in Israeli strikes. The bodies were reportedly found in the pits, buried by bulldozed debris, after the Israeli Defense Forces ended operations in the region.

Women and children are among the deceased; the majority are still unidentified. Some of the dead were allegedly found stripped naked with their hands bound behind their backs. "It indicates serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and these need to be subjected to further investigations," said Ravina Shamdasani, a chief spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk.

The sheer barbarity of these scenes may explain why they haven't garnered more attention. It's simply too awful to process, so we turn away.

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