World Bulletin / News Desk

Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist and former columnist for The Guardian newspaper, known recently for his role in helping NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden leak classified information about the US government's mass surveillance program, has slammed US journalists for their biased coverage of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.

Elaborating on an article published Monday by The Intercept, Greenwald told Huffington Post Live's Marc Lamont Hill in an interview: "There's no question that the way that the American media covers this conflict is based on the principle that Israeli lives are just inherently more valuable than Palestinian lives."

"It takes probably 50 Palestinians being killed to get anywhere near the attention of, say, an elderly Israeli woman being frightened in her home and having some kind of a medical problem because of the trauma," he added.

He criticized the media for remaining "essentially calm" despite the fact that almost as many Palestinians have been killed during the month-long siege of Gaza by Israel as Americans died in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"I think there's a racist element to it. I think there's an ethnocentric element to [the media coverage]," he said. "There's definitely an anti-Muslim strain that runs throughout how this coverage is conducted."

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, at least 1867 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed and 9470 wounded in unrelenting Israeli attacks since July 7.

The Israeli army, for its part, has confirmed the killing of 64 troops and the injury of 651 others in Gaza combat operations, while three civilians were killed in rocket attacks on Israeli cities.