Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital Airstrike
Updated 2024-02-23
2023-11-03 Media’s In-House Critics to Reporters: Quit Quoting Palestinians About Civilian Deaths “The initial coverage of a deadly blast at a Gaza hospital last week offers a fresh reminder of how hard it can be to get the news right—and what happens when it goes awry,” wrote NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. The New York Times (10/23/23) offered an editorial mea culpa, saying its initial coverage “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.” Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post (10/18/23) heaped scorn on “Media Suckered by Hamas’s Hospital Lie,” saying, “We’re not sure why any reputable journo ever believed Hamas in the first place.” “Hard evidence shows that…the rocket was fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not Israel,” the tabloid confidently asserted.
But the articles that chided media for being overly credulous toward Gazan authorities themselves failed to critically examine the claims they relied on. In fact, the rebukes of news outlets for citing Gazan officials were based on dubious or ambiguous evidence, and were cherry-picked to present a case that absolved Israel. This one-way skepticism suggests less a concern for careful, accurate journalism than it does a worry that, at a time when a US-allied government is inflicting mass civilian casualties, the institutions of the targeted population will be treated as credible sources.
- False: IDF has released audio of two Hamas operatives saying, quite literally, that the rocket is ‘from us’ (i.e. Islamist combatants trying to destroy Israel).”
Truth: recording was fabricated!
- False: video showing an airborne object bursting into flames around the time of the hospital explosion, with Israel asserting that this was the Islamic Jihad rocket that struck the hospital.
Truth: A closer look at the video captured by the Al Jazeera live feed shows the rocket being completely destroyed and broken apart in the sky. was able to identify four Israeli airstrikes on Gaza targeting the area near the hospital, starting at 18:54:28, then 18:55:03, then 18:57:42, and then 18:58:04.
The hospital explosion happened at 18:59:55, in line with the sequence of Israeli airstrikes in the vicinity identified by Al Jazeera. The fact that Israel had been bombing the neighborhood immediately before the blast was left out of the articles bashing news outlets for quoting the Gaza Health Ministry.
- False: “Independent forensic experts…have indicated that the available evidence from the blast was inconsistent with the damage one would expect to see from an Israeli strike.”
Truth: analysis of the impact site found a shallow channel of the sort an incoming missile would leave leading to the site from the northeast, while shrapnel splash marks fanned out to the southwest—again, opposite to the directions that the Israeli account would predict.
- False: Israeli government insists that the hospital was never a target
Truth: Israel does admit that the “hospital administration had received at least three warnings from the Israeli military to evacuate its wards” prior to the blast (New York Times, 10/18/23); Israel had “hit Al-Ahli Arab Hospital with an illumination artillery shell three days earlier, according to video evidence” (New York Times, 10/24/23). This circumstantial evidence was not included in the discussion of the supposed failure of media to be sufficiently skeptical of Palestinian allegations.
- False Bias: The only reason the Times apologia offered for giving more credence to Israeli than to Palestinian assertions was that the former were US-endorsed: “American and other international officials have said their evidence indicates that the rocket came from Palestinian fighter positions.”
Truth Bias: Of course, a government that is the main supplier of weaponry to another government accused of committing a war crime is not an objective analyst; the US exoneration of Israel (which was also a self-exoneration) should not have been treated as particularly compelling evidence, let alone a definitive judgment.
- Accurate Story: On October 31, Israel bombed a Gaza refugee camp, killing more than 110 people, according to local doctors (Washington Post, 11/1/23)
Watered down Story to protect Isael: New York Times print edition the next day began:
An airstrike that Israel said was targeting Hamas militants caused widespread damage in a densely populated neighborhood of Gaza on Tuesday. Hamas and hospital officials said numerous people were killed and wounded.
2023-10-18 Biden Sides with Israel After Airstrikes Level Gazan Hospital, Killing Hundreds of Palestinians Gaza’s Health Ministry said Israel told the hospital it had sent “warning strikes” one day before the deadly explosion. The U.N. has called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. Amid international condemnation over the attack, Israel has denied responsibility, blaming a Palestinian rocket. Israeli officials appeared to have deleted a video posted on social media showing Palestinian rockets being fired, after realizing the timestamp on the footage did not match up with the hospital attack. Jordanian King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas canceled a planned summit in Jordan with Biden in the wake of the hospital bombing. Biden said he was “outraged” by the attack, which constitutes a war crime, but sided with Israel as he made remarks alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier today. https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/18/headlines/biden_sides_with_israel_after_airstrikes_level_gazan_hospital_killing_hundreds_of_palestinians
2023-10-18 EI livestream: Israel’s al-Ahli hospital massacre Last night Israel bombed the al-Ahli hospital in northern Gaza. Al Jazeera is reporting this morning that 500 people were killed in the blast. The full death toll may not be known for some time. At least 1,000 children had already been killed by Israel in Gaza before the hospital massacre and the true death toll is almost certainly much higher. https://asawinstanley.substack.com/p/ei-livestream-israels-al-ahli-hospital
2023-10-17 What we know about the deadly blast at a Gaza City hospital In the dark of early evening in Gaza, reports emerged of an explosion at Gaza City’s al-Ahli hospital. Al-Ahli was crowded both with victims of 10 days of Israeli airstrikes and with families and others who have taken refuge on hospital grounds. Video that The Associated Press confirmed as being from the hospital showed an orange ball of fire and flames engulfing the building and grounds. https://apnews.com/article/hospital-airstrike-gaza-rocket-74ae3e38d9f771abd23d6d49c814b980
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