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NPR Whitewashes Palestinian Terrorists in Coverage of Israel-Hamas War
A Palestinian boy wearing the headband of Hamas’ armed wing The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Gaza City on May 15, 2022. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
If National Public Radio (NPR) were the sole source of news on the Israel-Hamas war, listeners would unlikely be able to accurately describe the Jewish state’s enemy in Gaza or the West Bank. Instead, they would be under the impression that Israeli troops are fighting against innocent Palestinian civilians, not barbaric terrorists.
NPR has managed to create such a skewed picture of reality by using three tactics: omission, distortion, and equivalence.
The omission was blatant, for example, in NPR’s recent coverage of an Israeli army raid that killed three terrorists in a West Bank hospital.
Despite the fact that all three had been claimed as members of terrorist organizations (Hamas and Islamic Jihad), NPR’s headline simply referred to them as “Palestinians:”
Hey, @NPR, you missed a vital word from your headline.
The three Palestinians were terrorists planning an attack while hiding in the hospital.
We’ve fixed it for you. https://t.co/IzUjVttTGv pic.twitter.com/OHcjivDCMW
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 30, 2024
The story was later updated, but the headline remained the same.
And the distortion is clear from the first paragraph, which still reads as if the terrorists’ affiliation was merely an Israeli accusation (emphasis added):
Israeli military and security forces disguised as civilians and hospital staff raided a hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin early Tuesday morning, killing three Palestinians who they say were militants.
NPR also embedded a video from the outlet’s Instagram account showing CCTV footage of the raid. Sadly, it carries a caption that’s as bad as the headline:
The piece also omits what the IDF Chief of Staff had to say about not letting terrorists hide inside hospitals. His comments were quoted by the wire services, but NPR preferred giving a platform only to Palestinian hospital officials.
Another example of omitting terrorism from the narrative is NPR’s weekly collection of “Photos of life in war.”
True to its headline — “Palestinians flee south in Gaza, Israel mourns dead soldiers” — the gallery only displays pictures of Israeli soldiers and displaced Palestinians.
The soldiers’ photos show troops in combat or at funerals. The Palestinians’ photos display them in damaged houses, refugee tents, or body bags.
Where are the Hamas terrorists? Like a tragic version of “Where’s Waldo?”, they are nowhere to be found. And that’s exactly the lie that Hamas wants media to spread — that Israeli soldiers are waging a war against unarmed Gazan civilians.
At the very least, media outlets should add a disclaimer to such pieces, saying that Hamas terrorists wear civilian clothes and attack Israeli troops from within civilian neighborhoods — as is apparent from a glance at the videos posted on the terror group’s Telegram channel.
NPR has also used the tactic of equivalence to whitewash Israel’s foes, by creating symmetry and erasing differences between the two sides.
A recent piece titled “Israeli and Palestinian radio stations broadcast messages for locked up loved ones,” put Palestinians held on suspicion of terrorism on the same moral level as innocent Israeli civilians:
One of the biggest sources of anguish for Israeli and Palestinian families in nearly four months of the Gaza war is the large number of hostages and prisoners taken by each side.
According to @NPR, “One of the biggest sources of anguish for Israeli & Palestinian families… is the large number of hostages & prisoners taken by each side.”
No, NPR, there is no moral equivalence between Israelis kidnapped by Hamas & Palestinians detained by Israel on… pic.twitter.com/V4OFGZT7V7
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 30, 2024
In the same piece, NPR also subtly compared the Jewish state to Hamas:
For Palestinian and Israeli families, the concern is not knowing about their loved ones in extreme and difficult conditions. Some Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees have died while being held. There are growing allegations of physical abuse against Palestinians in Israeli jails and even sexual abuse against Israelis in Hamas captivity.
When Israeli hostages in Gaza are equated to prisoners charged by a democratic country, it downplays the unparalleled atrocities that have been inflicted on them by Hamas since their abduction on October 7, when the group’s terrorists butchered 1,200 people in southern Israel.
And when the Jewish state is compared to a terrorist organization sworn to its destruction, the boundaries between good and evil are shattered. Why does NPR try so hard to do that? Why does it find such elaborate ways to erase the taint of Palestinian terrorism?
Is it so unimaginable that Israelis have a right to defend themselves against such evil?
The post NPR Whitewashes Palestinian Terrorists in Coverage of Israel-Hamas War 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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