This article analyses the Israeli state’s attempts to control the images employed during the reporting of the Israeli navy’s interception of a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Palestine on 31 May 2010. In the ensuing 48 hours, wide- spread use of footage released by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) ensured that the Israeli state’s narrative dominated western reporting of the event. The authors coin the term ‘full-spectacle dominance’ to describe the Israeli state’s strategy in media- managing this event. Drawing on the work of Tagg, Cottle and de Certeau, the article reviews the efficacy of Israel’s attempts to prevent the circulation of images that challenge their narrative of events, and the promotion of images which substan- tiate these narratives. The article argues that mainstream media programmes, such as BBC Panorama’s Death in the Med, embedded these images within a biased, Israel Palestine Gaza BBC Al-Jazeera war reporting