The Gaza Hospital Israel Did Not Bomb
The Fake News Media Misinformation Always Seems to Favor the Terrorists
Summary. On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian terrorist group the Islamic Resistance Movement (more commonly known by the acronym HAMAS) launched a terror attack on Israel using rockets, paragliders, boats, motorcycles and more to enter into Israel from the Gaza Strip. The HAMAS terrorists killed over 1,000 innocent Israeli civilians, injured over 3,000 more and took nearly 200 hostages. Of course, the government of Israel responded with a massive counter-terrorism effort, including mobilizing military forces, counter-terrorism forces, ground troops, targeted missile attacks and airstrikes.
The Fake News Media kicked into high gear to cast the Israeli response to the terror attack in a negative light. In its rush to besmirch Israel, the Fake News Media falsely claimed the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) bombed a hospital in Gaza, leveling the hospital and killing hundreds of civilians. These stories resulted in riots and violence around the world, particularly in Arab countries. The truth? The hospital did not get bombed and the hospital did not get leveled. Instead, a rocket landed in the parking lot. The Israelis did not fire the rocket, a radical Islamic group, Islamic Jihad, fired the rocket. And the Fake News Media’s original source for the misinformation was a spokesman for the Palestinian terror group HAMAS. Let’s take a look at what happened.
The Article. On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian terror group, the Islamic Resistance Movement or HAMAS launched an extensive terror attack from the Gaza Strip into Southern Israel. The terror attack utilized rockets, squadrons of drones to target Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) guard posts along the Israeli-Gaza border and thousands of HAMAS terrorists who breached the Israeli border. A very useful description of the broad, multi-faceted, complex terror attack undertaken by HAMAS may be found here. HAMAS targeted Israeli civilian and military targets, ultimately killing over 1,000 Israelis, injuring well over 3,000 (the dead and wounded include large numbers of elderly people, women, children and even entire families) and took over 200 hostages.
Israel reacted swiftly with massive force, as one might expect, targeting HAMAS operations in Gaza with airstrikes and cutting off fuel and electricity to Gaza. The Fake News Media did not wait long to try to turn the public against Israel’s effort to defend itself.
On Tuesday, October 17, 2023, The New York Times published an article with the following headline:
The NYT claimed over 500 people were killed in what the paper claimed was an “Israeli airstrike” which supposedly occurred while civilians were “sheltering” at the hospital.
Also on October 17, 2023, CNN pushed the same misinformation with its own article bearing the following headline:
The article claimed a school and a hospital were “lethally blasted” by “Israeli airstrikes.” The article claimed the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza was hit in the Israeli airstrike and that many people remained trapped in the “rubble.” The alleged source for the report was a “Palestinian Health Ministry” statement.
The Wall Street Journal parroted the same misinformation in an article of its own:
There are plenty of additional illustrations of this propaganda being spread around the world, including in broadcast news reports, social media and more. The predictable result was widespread anti-Israeli protests throughout the Arab world, as The New York Times itself reported in a social media post:
The Washington Post reported in an article on October 18, 2023, that across the Middle East protesters were furious with Israel and the United States over the alleged hospital airstrike. The WAPO reported the Saudi Arabian Government called the airstrike a “heinous crime committed by the Israeli Occupation Forces,” while Turkish President Erdogan claimed the airstrike “. . . is the latest example of Israel’s attacks devoid of the most basic human values.” The article reports numerous protests around Israeli and American embassies in the Middle East:
Closer to home, radical leftist Democrat “squad” member Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) stirred up anti-Israel sentiment at a pro-Palestinian protest in Washington, D.C., where she repeated the claim about Israel bombing the Gaza hospital. Rep. Tlaib also promoted the misinformation through social media.
In short, the Fake News Media spread this story far and wide undoubtedly knowing the response, particularly in the Arab world and among Palestinian sympathizers, would be explosive. I often say Fake News can be dangerous. This is a good illustration of why.
THE TRUTH:
Israel did not bomb the Gaza hospital. Actually, no one did. The rocket landed in the hospital’s parking lot. Israeli forces did not fire the rocket. A revolutionary Islamic terrorist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, fired the rocket and hit the hospital’s parking lot when the rocket fell short.
The day after news reports aired claiming the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital was hit by Israeli airstrikes supposedly killing 500 civilians, the Israeli Defense Forces pushed back contending the IDF was not behind the blast, but rather, the blast resulted from a misfired rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Times of Israel reported extensively on the initial IDF denials:
Video posted to social media the day after the blast confirmed the rocket landed in the hospital’s parking lot and that the hospital buildings and other structures remained in tact. The IDF also posted video to social media of the hospital both before and after the rocket blast, confirming only the parking lot was hit.
The following day, October 18, 2023, the IDF released intercepted communications between HAMAS terrorists confirming the rocket came from a Palestinian Islamic Jihad misfire. The rocket was part of a barrage of rockets launched from northern Gaza which caused rocket alarms to go off in southern and central Israel. The barrage of rockets and the explosion itself was captured on video.
The Times of Israel article on October 18, 2023, lays out the evidence conclusively and clearly demonstrates the HAMAS terrorists deliberately spread misinformation by blaming Israel for the blast, by falsely claiming the hospital itself was hit (when the rocket hit the parking lot) and by falsely inflating the number of casualties:
American intelligence experts also concluded the blast resulted from a misfire by Palestenian militants, though these reports are based on anonymous sources.
By October 19, 2023, American media outlets reported President Joe Biden himself publicly stated the United States Department of Defense confirmed the hospital explosion was probably caused by a Palestinian rocket:
The Associated Press continues to follow up on this story and, as recently as November 22, 2023, updated its article outlining the considerable evidence from the IDF, multiple independent video sources and even from Islamic Jihad itself confirming a misfired rocket from the Palestinian terror group caused the destruction in the hospital’s parking lot.
As the truth about what happened at the Gaza hospital emerged, the Fake News Media began slowly walking back their claims.
CNN quietly altered its headline and posted a correction to its article:
By October 23, 2023, The New York Times published an Editor's Note about the original story admitting, its original reports “relied too heavily on claims made by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not be immediately verified.” The NYT further admitted “. . . Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified:”
These admissions took far too long, since the NYT took nearly one week to retract the original article.
As The Western Journal reported in an article on October 23, 2023, The NYT spent the days after the original report “stealthily updating the article,” as the actual facts of what happened were released. Only a week later did it cave in and drop the “Editor’s Note:”
Too often, the damage from Fake News is already done before any effort is made by the Fake News Media to clarify or correct the misinformation (if any effort to correct the misinformation is made at all). This is one of those times. With respect to this particular Fake News about the Gaza hospital rocket attack, an article in The Federalist covers the consequences of Fake News and what needs to be done about it:
The article is worth a read. I could not agree more.
Commentary. The Fake News Media turned on Israel, probably because the far left generally turned on Israel in favor of the Palestinians. After the October 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel, the tide of public opinion swelled heavily (and rightfully) in Israel’s favor. In my opinion, the Fake News Media feels the need to tamp this groundswell of pro-Israeli opinion down. To do so, the Fake News Media highlights everything it conceivably can which depicts Israel in a negative light. The Fake News dealt with in this article is a good illustration.
Keep the legacy media’s bias and perspective in mind as you read articles or watch news reports about the Israeli-Gaza conflict. You will see the legacy media engage in the same conduct over and over again when reporting on these issues. From The New York Times changing a headline from HAMAS “terrorists” to HAMAS “gunmen,” to false claims by the BBC that IDF forces were “targeting medical teams and Arab speakers” in a Gaza hospital (the opposite was true, IDF forces included Arab speakers in order to help medical teams – the BBC apologized for the misinformation), the misinformation always seems to flow in favor of the terrorists. In that respect, the Fake News Media treats news about conservatives, Christians, gun owners or Trump supporters precisely the same way. Now you know.
(My new book Fake News Exposed: 25 of the Worst Media Lies about Conservatives, Guns, COVID and Everything Else is out at Amazon. You may also pick up a copy of one of my other books at Amazon as well.)