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Major Canadian News Outlet Apologizes After Airing Gaza War Footage During Hanukkah Story
Israel’s military operates in the Gaza Strip during a temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in this handout picture released on Nov. 27, 2023. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
CTV News Toronto has issued an on-air apology after the Canadian broadcaster showed footage of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza while airing a report on how the local community in Toronto was preparing to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights.
“We mistakenly aired images of the war in the Middle East while reporting on the beginning of Hanukkah,” CTV News anchor Zuraidah Alman said in the apology on Thursday. “We are deeply sorry that this occurred during our coverage of this important and special event.”
The news outlet blamed a “technical issue” for the war footage being aired.
Today, a @CTVToronto story was broadcast about Chanukah but included images and footage of the war in #Israel instead of what should have obviously been the proper holiday content. @CTVToronto apologized on air during the 5 and 6 p.m. broadcasts and the segment has been fixed.… pic.twitter.com/ZDwWdZPK0T
— CIJA (@CIJAinfo) December 8, 2023
Earlier in the day, CTV News aired a noon-hour news story on how Toronto was going to observe the start of Hanukkah that night, highlighting the lighting of a large menorah at Mel Lastman Square.
However, as a reporter was discussing the local Jewish community’s plans for the holiday, the news segment showed footage of the war in Gaza between Israel and the Hamas terror group for about 20-25 seconds.
CTV in Toronto did a story about how Hanukkah is celebrated in the city.
Somebody working there couldn’t take a Jewish holiday being celebrated so he sabotaged the report
pic.twitter.com/o0wegwPT2q
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 7, 2023
Jewish and pro-Israel groups decried what appeared to be an attempt to link Israel’s defensive war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza to Jewish holiday celebrations halfway around the world.
“What is this, @CTVToronto? Is there no time delay for live broadcasts?” B’nai Brith Canada, a Jewish human rights organization, wrote on X/Twitter. “Which employee made the editorial decision to link the war against Hamas in Gaza to the Jewish holiday of Chanukah? Please explain why anyone should believe this was not a premeditated act of #antisemitism.”
HonestReporting Canada, an organization that promotes fairness and accuracy in Canadian media coverage of Israel and the Middle East, lodged a complaint with CTV News after the segment aired.
“In what should have been a happy segment, one which focuses on the story of Hanukkah, light triumphing over darkness, viewers instead were treated to a segment, which insinuated that Jews are collectively intertwined and responsible for the war in Gaza,” HonestReporting Canada wrote of the incident on its website.
According to the world’s leading definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel is antisemitic.
Despite CTV News’ apology, many observers suspected the airing of the war footage was deliberate.
“I feel there was a deliberate sabotage act on Hanukkah,” Olga Goldberg, who was attending Thursday’s opening night of the menorah lighting, told the Toronto Sun. She added that it felt like the video was “intentionally placed” to demonize Jewish people.
Thursday’s segment came three days after CTV News anchor Omar Sachedina introduced a story by suggesting a peaceful rally of Jewish and pro-Israel activists was “in support of the war” in Gaza.
“In Ottawa, thousands of Jewish Canadians rallied on Parliament Hill in support of the war while inside Parliament, Palestinian Canadians made a plea for help,” Sachedina said, setting up the news story for a reporter in the field.
A CTV anchor falsely claimed the peaceful Rally for the Jewish People was a rally in support of the war.
This is a prime example of why a growing number of people hate mainstream media. Do better, @CTVNews
— Beth Baisch (@BethBaisch) December 5, 2023
At the rally, demonstrators said they were showing solidarity with the people of Israel and the hostages and victims from Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israeli communities. Hamas terrorists’ surprise invasion of Israel and murderous rampage — in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 abducted — launched the current war in Gaza.
“We are deeply disturbed by @CTVNews misrepresenting yesterday’s peaceful ‘Rally for the Jewish People’ in Ottawa that was attended by thousands of Jews, including students and Holocaust survivors, as being pro-war,” the group Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies posted on X/Twitter. “The poignant pleas from the families of those held hostage by Hamas, as well as those whose loved ones were murdered, were anything but. We call for a retraction and an apology.”
CTV News has yet to comment on the incident.
The post Major Canadian News Outlet Apologizes After Airing Gaza War Footage During Hanukkah Story first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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