Media Review: How did major American newspapers cover the Gaza war?

Media Review: How did major American newspapers cover the Gaza war?

    Tuesday, January 09, 2024   No comments

 A quantitative analysis conducted by the American website "The Intercept" concluded that the coverage of major newspapers in America in the first six weeks of the attack on Gaza showed a strong bias in favor of Israel.

The website said that coverage of the Israeli war on Gaza by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times was consistently biased against the Palestinians.

The website explained in its report that the print media, which plays an influential role in shaping American public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, did not pay much attention to the unprecedented impact of the Israeli blockade and bombing campaign on both children and journalists in the Gaza Strip.

Disproportionate coverage

He said that major American newspapers disproportionately highlighted Israeli deaths in the conflict, used emotional language to describe the killing of Israelis, did not do so with Palestinian deaths, and provided unbalanced coverage of anti-Semitic actions in the United States, while largely ignoring anti-Muslim racism in the wake of the attack. October 7th in Israel.

Pro-Palestinian activists accused major newspapers of bias with Israel, with the New York Times witnessing protests in front of its Manhattan headquarters over its coverage of the Gaza war, an accusation supported by The Intercept's analysis.

The Intercept's open source analysis focuses on the first six weeks of the conflict, during which 14,800 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children, were killed by Israel's bombing of Gaza.

The Intercept collected more than a thousand articles from the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times about Israel's war on Gaza, and recorded the uses of some key terms and the context in which they were used.

Serious defect

She said that the statistics reveal a serious flaw in the way Israeli and pro-Israel figures are covered versus Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices, with uses that favor Israeli narratives over Palestinian narratives.

She commented that this anti-Palestinian bias in the print media combined with a similar survey of US television news conducted by the analysis writers last month, found a wider disparity.

The risks of this routine devaluation of Palestinian lives cannot be small. With the death toll rising in Gaza, entire cities flattened and uninhabitable for years, and entire families wiped out, the US government wields enormous influence as Israel's main sponsor and arms supplier. The media's exposure to the conflict means that there are fewer political downsides to American support for Israel.

A bleak picture for the Palestinian side

Coverage from the first six weeks of the war paints a bleak picture of the Palestinian side, according to the analysis, one that makes humanizing the Palestinians, and thus eliciting US sympathy for the Palestinians, more difficult.

The site explained that it searched for all articles containing related words (such as “Palestinian,” “Gaza,” “Israeli,” etc.) in the three aforementioned newspapers. He analyzed every sentence in every article and counted the number of specific terms.

He said that the coverage survey he conducted contained 4 main results:

Disproportionate coverage of deaths

In all three newspapers, the phrase “Israeli” or “Israel” appears more often than “Palestinian” or variations thereof, even as Palestinian deaths exceed those of Israelis. For all deaths, Palestinians are mentioned once, and for every Israeli death, Israelis are mentioned 8 times, or an average of 16 times more for each Palestinian death.

"Slaughter" the Israelis, not the Palestinians

The Intercept reported that highly emotional terms for killing civilians such as “massacre,” “massacre,” and “horrific” were almost exclusively reserved for Israelis killed by Palestinians, and not the other way around.

He added that editors and reporters used the term "massacre" to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 60 to 1, and used the word "massacre" to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 125 to 2. The word "horrific" was used to describe the killing of Israelis versus Palestinians 36 to 4.

The Washington Post used the word “massacres” several times in its reporting to describe what happened in the October 7 attack. “President Biden faces mounting pressure from lawmakers in both parties to punish Iran after the Hamas massacre.”

In a Washington Post story published on November 13 about how the Israeli siege and bombing had claimed the lives of 1 in 200 Palestinians, the word “massacre” or “massacre” was not used once. Palestinians were simply “killed” or “died,” often in the passive voice.

For children and journalists

The website also noted that only two headlines out of more than 1,100 news articles in the study mentioned the word “children” related to the children of Gaza. In a notable exception, The New York Times ran front-page stories in late November about the historic pace of killing of Palestinian women and children, even though the headline did not mention children or women.

He added that although Israel's war on Gaza is perhaps the bloodiest for children, most of whom are Palestinian, in modern history, there is no mention of the word "children" and related terms in the titles of the articles included in the study.

Gaza and Ukraine

While the war on Gaza was one of the bloodiest wars in modern history for journalists, most of them Palestinian, the word “journalists” and its repetitions such as “reporters” and “photographers” appear in only 9 headlines out of more than 1,100 articles studied. Approximately 48 Palestinian journalists were killed due to Israeli bombing at the time of the truce, and today, the death toll of Palestinian journalists has exceeded 100. However, only 4 of 9 articles containing the words journalist and correspondent were about Arab correspondents.

The Intercept commented that the lack of coverage of the unprecedented killings of children and journalists, groups that usually elicit sympathy from Western media, is conspicuous. By comparison, more Palestinian children died in the first week of the Gaza bombing than in the entire first year of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, yet the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times all published sympathetic stories highlighting the Ukraine war.

The website commented that the asymmetry in how children are covered is both qualitative and quantitative. On October 13, the Los Angeles Times published an Associated Press report saying: “The Gaza Ministry of Health said on Friday that 1,799 people had been killed in the territory, including more than 580 under the age of 18 and 351 women. Last Saturday's Hamas attack led to the deaths of more than 1,300 people in Israel, including women, children, and young music festival-goers. Note that Israeli youth are referred to as children while Palestinian youth are described as under 18 years of age.

During discussions about prisoner exchanges, this repeated refusal to refer to Palestinians as children was most evident, with the New York Times in one instance referring to “Israeli women and children” being exchanged for “Palestinian women and minors.”

A Washington Post report published on November 21 announcing the truce agreement removed the phrase “Palestinian women and children” entirely: “President Joe Biden said in a statement Tuesday night that the deal to release 50 women and children held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, in exchange for 150 A Palestinian prisoner held by Israel. The brief did not mention Palestinian women and children at all.

Coverage of hate in the United States

Likewise, when it comes to how the conflict in Gaza contributes to hatred in the United States, major newspapers pay more attention to anti-Semitic attacks than to those directed against Muslims, The Intercept continued. Overall, there has been a disproportionate focus on racism toward Jewish people, versus racism targeting Muslims, Arabs, or those perceived as such.

During the period of the Intercept study, the three newspapers studied mentioned anti-Semitism more than Islamophobia (549 vs. 79), and this was before the “campus anti-Semitism” debate created by Republicans in Congress.

Despite many high-profile instances of both anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim racism during the survey period, 87% mentioned discrimination around anti-Semitism, compared to 13% mentioned Islamophobia, including related terms.

When major newspapers fail

In general, the killings of Palestinians in Gaza do not receive as much coverage in terms of scope or emotional weight as the killings of Israelis on October 7. These killings are often presented as arbitrarily high. Hamas' killings of Israeli civilians are consistently portrayed as part of the group's strategy, while killings of Palestinian civilians are covered almost as if they were a series of one-time mistakes committed thousands of times, despite many operations indicating Israel's intent to harm civilians and infrastructure. Civilian. The result is that the three major newspapers rarely gave the Palestinians humanitarian coverage.

Despite the biased coverage of Israel

Despite this disparity, opinion polls show a shift in sympathy toward the Palestinians and away from Israel among Democrats, with huge generational divisions driven in part by stark differences in news sources. In general, we find that young people get their information from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter, while older Americans get their information from print media and news.

The Intercept said biased coverage in major newspapers and mainstream television news affects public perceptions of the war and directs viewers toward a distorted view of the conflict, and this has led pro-Israel critics to blame pro-Palestinian views on social media “misinformation.”

He concluded by saying that, however, an analysis of both print media and television news shows that if any group of media consumers gets a biased image it is because of the news broadcast by the established media outlets in the United States.

Media review: Western warning against use of the term “Gaza genocide” despite the continued killing and displacement of people

Media review: Western warning against use of the term “Gaza genocide” despite the continued killing and displacement of people

    Tuesday, December 26, 2023   No comments

The New York Times: There is no food or water... Two million displaced people are living in a difficult crisis in southern Gaza

The American newspaper "The New York Times" revealed that the residents of the Gaza Strip are suffering from a lack of food or water, as well as from a lack of sanitation, with the Israeli aggression and siege continuing for the 81st day, noting that the humanitarian crisis has worsened since the end of the temporary truce, and because the occupation forced the population to evacuate some Regions.

The newspaper explained that more than 1.7 million displaced people were registered in shelters in the southern regions, including several hundred thousand people who cannot be accommodated within their walls, and who sleep along roads and in open spaces.

According to analysis of satellite images, damage caused by Israeli air strikes was identified in the vicinity of almost every shelter in the southern areas of Gaza, and in some cases the shelters were directly bombed, doubling the suffering of the displaced.

The newspaper confirmed that the Israeli bombing, especially which “was relentless during the first 6 weeks of the war,” also affected the areas “to which the occupation asked the residents of Gaza to move.”

She indicated that Rafah is the area most crowded with displaced people in the Strip, as data indicates that the United Nations shelters in Rafah host, on average, more than 15,000 registered people each, although most shelters are designed to accommodate only 2,000 people.

On the other hand, officials of relief organizations said that the region is not equipped to provide basic services to the displaced, noting that its 3 hospitals are only partially functioning, and people in shelters and camps live in difficult conditions with little food or water, and approximately 500 people share a toilet. One.

According to the World Food Programme, 93% of Gaza's population currently suffers from "severe food insecurity," and the UN Security Council issued a resolution calling for "large-scale" humanitarian aid to be delivered to the Gaza Strip.

Media review: Libération, accounts of the beheading of children, rape and burning by Hamas fighters are false and aimed at garnering support for revenge against Gaza

Media review: Libération, accounts of the beheading of children, rape and burning by Hamas fighters are false and aimed at garnering support for revenge against Gaza

    Tuesday, December 12, 2023   No comments

The French newspaper “Libération” published a lengthy investigation into the stories circulated by the Israeli authorities about cutting off the heads of children, raping women, and tearing open the stomachs of pregnant women. The newspaper’s fact-finding team concluded that most of these stories were false and were aimed at inciting international public opinion and gathering support for a revenge operation against Gaza. Here are some excerpts, translated from the French  report:

 

On October 7, Hamas, and later other Palestinian factions, killed more than 1,200 people, including about 800 civilians, including the elderly, families, women, and children. The newspaper's investigative team returned in detail, on numerous occasions, to these documented and often photographed acts, which Hamas continues to deny, despite countless evidence.

...

However, over the past two months, the investigation team has also noted numerous unconfirmed or inconsistent stories and testimonies. Today, the final results of the attack are almost known. And also for the many civilians who were killed, and the circumstances of their deaths. However, available data confirms that some of the atrocities initially described did not happen, and these false testimonies relate almost exclusively to allegations of child abuse, which were at the heart of the media war that began two months ago and have been relayed for weeks by volunteer rescuers, soldiers or Israeli army officials, but also by the head of state and Israeli diplomacy. It was rich material for the international press, as well as Western political leaders.

 ... 

Did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Foreign Ministry, or even Michal Herzog, wife of President Isaac Herzog, deliberately spread lies, sometimes in diplomatic talks at the highest levels, with the aim of garnering support from international public opinion? October 7 was a real massacre, but it was also the subject of war propaganda.

The lie of forty children and beheadings
 

On Tuesday, October 10, the Israeli army allowed two foreign press journalists to enter Kibbutz Kfar Azza, located less than one kilometer from the Gaza Strip. One of the testimonies stands out: Nicole Zedek, a correspondent for the English-language Hebrew channel i24News, who reported: “One of the commanders here said that at least 40 children were killed,” adding that “some of them were beheaded.” He said he had never seen such atrocities before.

 ...

This statement will be repeated by the media around the world, but also by the Israeli authorities, for several weeks. The next day, the official Twitter account of the State of Israel published a video clip from the i24 channel recalling the Kafr Azza massacre, accompanied by the phrase: “40 children were killed.” The statement then found itself prominently among the videos that flooded Israel's Internet in October denouncing Hamas' crimes.

 ...

In particular, a clip from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlighted the “forty children” who were killed, in imitation of children’s programs, against a backdrop of unicorns and rainbows.

 ...

This assertion is now contradicted by the numbers. As of December 5, the Israeli police had notified the Israel National Insurance Institute, whose statistics serve as today's reference, of the names of 789 identified civilian casualties (excluding security forces), and published 686 of them, and the Foreign Ministry told us that only ten were civilian casualties. Their identities have not been established, and among the 100 unpublished names, a very large number are known thanks to the systematic collection work carried out by numerous media outlets (including Haaretz) and Israeli associations, in particular on the basis of reports submitted by the families of the victims, and as It is highly unlikely that the existence of other young victims remains unknown two months after the events, as internal sources from the Israeli forensic medical institutes that received the bodies confirmed to us that “the official assessments are correct,” a journalist from the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.

 ...

According to medical institutes, only one child was found among the civilians killed on October 7. They are Mila Cohen, 10 months old, who was shot and killed in Be'eri along with her father. But according to our information, there is a second child: Omer Kedem Siman Tov, who died in his burning house in Kibbutz Nir Oz, along with his 5-year-old sisters, after their parents were shot. Omer Kedem Siman Tov appears in the institute's file as 4 years old, but

 ...

Several consistent items consulted by our investigation team, and privately available on the social networks of the deceased family, indicate that he was in fact two years and three months old at the time of his murder, and other than these two cases, no other children were killed on October 7 in The kibbutzim, and there was no “headless” child, contrary to what was widely reported. 

Yossi Landau told several international media outlets that he discovered the body of a pregnant woman with a bullet wound to her head, and her abdomen was cut open to remove the fetus that had been stabbed.

 ...

Haaretz newspaper indicates that Yossi Landau confirmed that the pregnant woman was found dead near House 426, which consists of two apartments and is located in a neighborhood where mainly elderly people live. According to the survivors of the building who were interviewed by the Israeli newspaper, there was no pregnant woman.

 ...

However, the Israeli authorities have highlighted this horrific testimony, for example in a message posted by the Israeli Embassy in the United States on Twitter (now X) and Instagram, on October 27. In a recent column published in the American magazine Newsweek, entitled “‘The silence of international authorities in the face of mass rapes committed by Hamas is a betrayal of all women,’” lawyer and First Lady of Israel, Michelle Herzog, also referred to this act and stated: “A Hamas videotape shows One of the kibbutzim terrorists tortured a pregnant woman and extracted her fetus.”

 ...

Our investigative team was able to view a video being circulated that claims to provide evidence of this abuse, and since this has been specifically corrected by the Anti-Defamation League, a leading US NGO in the fight against anti-Semitism, the images were in fact taken. From a video shared in 2018, which allegedly shows abuses committed by a Mexican cartel and is not there.

 ...

These atrocities, initially described by Landau, were reported verbatim on October 31 to the US Senate by Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State: “A little boy and a little girl, ages 6 and 8, and their parents were around the breakfast table, Where the father’s eye was gouged out in front of his children, the mother’s breast was cut off, the girl’s foot was amputated, and the boy’s fingers were cut off before they were executed...and after that their tormentors sat and ate a meal...this is what this society faces.”

 ...

According to our investigations, no child between the ages of 6 and 11 years old died in Be’eri, according to available reports, and the only family that witnessed the death of two children of different genders in Be’eri is the Hatsroni family, whose circumstances of death, previously mentioned, do not match Landau’s account. It is impossible to know whether the elements reported by the head of the relief organization are a distortion of the facts of an event or an invention.

 

The goal is to obtain American and international support to take revenge on Gaza

 This campaign, launched in the ears of political leaders and promoted on social media and among journalists, was intended to mobilize, and then consolidate, Israeli and international public support for the violent reprisals in Gaza, and had the side effect of fueling strong denial. of the October 7 crimes on social media, casting doubt on the true accounts of the attack that killed about 800 civilians.

 

source: https://www.liberation.fr/checknews/israel-7-octobre-un-massacre-et-des-mystifications-20231211_A7QBBETYDRDERFAQINGA66ZAR4/

Media review: US, Israel isolated in the world, face internal and external pressure to stop the killing

Media review: US, Israel isolated in the world, face internal and external pressure to stop the killing

    Sunday, December 10, 2023   No comments

Le Monde: Israel has transformed the right of self-defense into the right to destroy everything

Le Monde newspaper said that the isolated United States, by rejecting the draft United Nations Security Council resolution in favor of an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” on December 8, guaranteed the continuation of the punishment imposed by Israel on an entire people, so that the horrific routine in Gaza continues, with more Of dead, wounded and devastated with no hope of seeing the end.

The newspaper pointed out in an editorial that the right to self-defense has become the right to destroy everything, since Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant announced that Israel is facing “human animals” and that it will “act on this basis.”

The results of the strategy aimed at eliminating the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) have now turned, according to the newspaper, into death everywhere, hospitals being bombed, destitution and starvation for hundreds of thousands of people.

In her editorial, which she chose as the title: “Israel Lost in the Gaza Massacre,” she said that the Palestinians are being driven like cattle by Israeli orders from one part of the Gaza Strip to another, and the cries of the heads of the United Nations agencies who, despite Israeli disdain, are making impressive efforts, even if they resonate in Void.

Le Monde believed that this unprecedented massacre is not justified because the results obtained so far are still far from the declared goal of eliminating Hamas, noting that Israel’s loss in this war is not a surprise, because it is a reflection of its deviation before October 7. The first, since it tore itself apart on the basis of its social contract instead of the law, in light of the attacks of the extremist movement that has been ravaging it for more than half a century, especially since the United States does not protect Israel from itself.

The newspaper concluded by justifying the US representative at the United Nations for their use of veto power against the ceasefire, saying that such a truce “will sow the seeds of a future war,” asking whether Washington believes that the continued bombings supplied by Israel to fall on Gaza without protecting civilians could result in Other than the hatred that does not extinguish on this bloody land?

Media Part: Israel seeks to kill journalists so that they do not document its crimes

The Media Part website said that the head of the Palestinian Journalists Union, Nasser Abu Bakr, spoke in Paris about the importance of the work of his fellow journalists in informing the world about the situation in the Gaza Strip, and described the hell they live in and the danger to which they expose themselves in order to overcome the media siege that Israel imposes on them. It is committing its information crime in Gaza.

The French website explained - in a report written by Younes Abzouz - that Nasser Abu Bakr, who is on a European tour to alert international public opinion to the tragic situation that journalists are experiencing in Gaza and the West Bank, stated that “Gaza had 200 journalists before October 7, and today There are almost none of them, as 63 journalists and media workers were killed, 56 of them in Gaza.

“He is regularly threatened with death and arrest, and receives anonymous calls and messages,” said photo reporter Moataz Azaizeh, who documents every day on Instagram the horrific lives of civilians trapped in Gaza, just as Palestinian journalists working in the West Bank are threatened by settlers and members of the Israeli security forces.

Biden's arming of Israel provokes violent reactions due to the high casualties in Gaza

The Washington Post revealed that the administration of US President Joe Biden is facing increasing pressure due to its supply of powerful weapons to Israel, with the death toll rising in the Gaza Strip and raising questions about whether the United States is making more efforts to ensure the safety of civilians, as the main military supporter of Tel Aviv. .

Human rights groups, along with a growing bloc within Biden's Democratic Party, are intensifying their work to scrutinize arms flows to Israel, which have included tens of thousands of bombs since the Hamas attack on October 7.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Sunday that the time remaining for the battle in Khan Yunis is shortening and the fighting is becoming more critical and complex.

The time remaining for the battle in Khan Yunis is shortening, and the fighting has become more critical and complex

The newspaper said that the Israeli "army" is finding it difficult to advance in areas of the incursion into the Gaza Strip.

The newspaper pointed out that "there is a tension between the goals of the war and the time allocated to achieve them."

She added that the Israeli divisions are now fighting three battles at the same time, and in each of them they face stronger resistance than in the past.

According to the newspaper, “The Israeli army hopes to end most of its operations in the northern Gaza Strip within a week, but after that the battle in Khan Yunis will become more critical.”

These developments, according to the newspaper, “make the fighting in the coming weeks more complex.”

She said, "It is better not to be drawn into the atmosphere in the television studios, in some of which chants of victory have already been heard in recent days."

She stressed that "the Israeli army does not have a complete intelligence picture of the locations where Hamas hides prisoners, and there is no doubt that the continuation of the fighting puts their lives in danger."

Earlier today, Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published on its front page a report under the title, “The fighting is difficult and slow, and it will take a long time for the Israeli army to accomplish its tasks.”

In this context, the Israeli Channel 7 said that estimates in Israel are that the war will continue at high intensity for at least two months.

They also estimate in "Israel", according to the Israeli media, which quoted sources, that "there will be attempts to advance additional deals to liberate prisoners in the near future."

Yesterday, Israeli media confirmed that the death toll from the Israeli occupation army had risen to 102 since the beginning of the ground incursion into the Gaza Strip.

Israeli media reported on Sunday that the heat in the arenas in Yemen and Iraq poses a real dilemma for the United States of America.

The Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" expressed its fear of the Yemeni threats, saying that "the Yemeni threat to prevent any ship from heading to Israel has been raised to the level of a strategic threat."

The Israeli newspaper confirmed that "these threats may ignite an international military confrontation in the Red Sea."

She added that the American and Israeli presence in the Red Sea appears to be “not succeeding in deterring them,” noting that “the matter may require a major show of force in the near future.”

The Israeli newspaper quoted "Reuters" and "Bloomberg" as saying, "Saudi Arabia is now pressuring the administration in Washington to exercise restraint in its responses to Yemen, in order to allow the completion of the peace agreement between Saudi Arabia and the Yemenis."

Another Saudi fear, according to Haaretz, is that “an American attack on the Yemenis may harm relations between Riyadh and Tehran, at a time when the two countries are slowly restoring relations after resuming them last March.”

From Saudi Arabia's al-sharq alawsat:

The Western political culture, which many of us have had the opportunity to live and enjoy its good deeds, is not at all as ideal as we thought out of our admiration - and sometimes - our fascination with it. If under normal circumstances it appears civilized, sophisticated, and tolerant. When problems become severe and hostility escalates, it strips off all the garments of civilization, sophistication, and tolerance. This is exactly what we see today, not only in the atrocities committed against civilians, hospitals, schools, and places of worship in the occupied Palestinian territories, but also appears shocking and shocking in the government’s restrictions on freedom of expression in American universities and the British media, and the blackmail of the advertising boycott practiced shamelessly in order to... Gagging mouths and stifling voices of objection.

 

Media review: CNN: The possibility of the Israeli army placing weapons in Al-Shifa Hospital is high

Media review: CNN: The possibility of the Israeli army placing weapons in Al-Shifa Hospital is high

    Saturday, November 25, 2023   No comments

After accidentally revealing that the tunnels under the hospital were built by Israel, CNN is raising doubt about the weapons the Israeli military claimed was found in the healthcare facility.

The American network "CNN" reported that the number of weapons that appeared in a video clip of the occupation "army", which he published on November 15, in which he said that he found them in Al-Shifa Hospital and that they belonged to the Hamas movement, differs from similar scenes that were filmed. By the media crews, which indicates, according to the American network, that the Israeli “army” may have transferred the weapons, or placed them there, before the media crews arrived.

CNN said that it compared the footage published by the Israeli army with the scenes captured by Fox News, which was granted access to Al-Shifa Hospital in the following hours.

The network added that the wristwatch on the wrist of the Israeli army spokesman, who led the photography tour at Al-Shifa Hospital, showed that the time was 1:18 p.m. The Fox News correspondent, who was later admitted to the hospital, said in his report that it was midnight.

"CNN" explained that the "Fox News" scenes showed a bag located behind the MRI machine inside the hospital, and two AK-47 rifles appeared on top of it, while the "Army" scenes showed the presence of one rifle of this model. CNN said that it is not clear where the second weapon came from, and why it did not appear in the Israeli army video.

The network reported that it had contacted the Israeli army to obtain clarifications regarding the apparent contradiction, but had not received a response.

CNN said that there is no evidence yet of the existence of a network of tunnels under Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, and that there is no indication that Israeli forces have uncovered a multi-level tunnel with underground rooms.

Israeli media confirmed that the massive Israeli propaganda after the Israeli occupation “army” stormed Al-Shifa Hospital was a disappointment to the Israeli settlers, who thought that “Israel” would eliminate “Hamas” during its operation.

The Israeli media said that the leadership of Hamas remains cohesive even after the storming of Al-Shifa Hospital, and that its fighters are continuing to fire rockets towards the settlements on the Gaza Strip and towards Tel Aviv.

The media also pointed out that "the army reached recovery, but the goal was not achieved, and we have not yet captured Sinwar or Deif. Yesterday, the army announced that it had eliminated a Hamas official whom no Israeli knew."

The Arab affairs analyst for the Israeli Channel 13, Tzivi Yehezkeli, said that it is clear that there is nothing of real value in Al-Shifa Hospital.

Media review: On CNN, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, 'Israel built the tunnels under Gaza hospital'

Media review: On CNN, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, 'Israel built the tunnels under Gaza hospital'

    Tuesday, November 21, 2023   No comments

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, just like that, dismantled the Israeli narrative that Hamas built the tunnel systems under hospitals and is using it as command-and-control centers--justifying Israel troops attack on hospitals and other protected places in international law. 

Ehud Barak revealed confirmed in an interview with CNN’s Amanpour, who was clearly surprised by the disclosure and tried to give him a chance to take what he said back… he disclosed that the tunnel complex beneath Al-Shifa Hospital was constructed by Israel when Gaza was under Israeli occupation decades ago.

Conflating news and propaganda is becoming a problem of credibility for both politicians and media outlets. First, it was the lie about “40 babies beheaded by Hamas.” Then Israel's claim that Hamas targeted and killed party goers on Oct. 7, only to learn later that Hamas did not know about the concert and that some Israelis were killed by Israeli troops who deployed a protocol that is mean to kill Israelis if they were in the process of being taken hostage. All in all, mainstream media are struggling to rebuild public trust.