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Once Again, CNN Distorts Gaza War and Ignores Israel’s Efforts to Protect Civilians
As CAMERA has repeatedly documented, there is a pattern of CNN reports lobbing horrific allegations at Israel, based on exceedingly thin evidence and lots of insinuation. It’s a standard, or practice, akin to tabloid journalism — a standard certainly not appropriate for serious journalism nor serious accusations of war crimes.
The latest example comes from a February 13 article entitled, “‘We were walking in water, sand, mud’: Palestinian women describe terror of 12-mile escape on foot from Gaza City,” by Abeer Salman and Mohammad Al Sawalhi.
The gist of the story, based on the claims of four women in Gaza, is that they and other Gazans were besieged and almost buried alive in a building in the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City by Israeli forces before the women and children were forced to walk eight hours south to Deir al-Balah while the men were “abducted.”
As is all too common in such CNN articles, there is heavy use of suggestive language implying Israeli cruelty.
For example, the authors repeatedly imply that Israeli forces were shooting civilians without explicitly saying so. For example, they quote one of the women saying, “We opened the door for them and asked them not to shoot. We told them we only have kids, but they kept shooting.” Another supposedly told CNN that, “Israeli forces were firing towards them as they walked” after leaving the building in al-Rimal, while a third also supposedly told CNN that “they could see Israeli missile boats off the coast and were fearful they would be fired on.”
Yet, despite all this apparent shooting, the article never says whether anyone was actually killed or wounded. Surely the journalists would have mentioned it had any of the civilians actually been shot by Israeli forces in these instances. Either Israeli forces are murderous, but terrible, shooters, or something else is going on.
In a similar apparent effort to depict Israeli forces as cruel, the authors insinuate that the IDF was trying to demolish buildings with civilians inside. One of the Gazans from the al-Rimal building is quoted saying, “We heard the houses collapsing on the heads of people” and that “[t]hey were about to bury us as well, but we begged them to let us out.”
The evil Israelis, it’s implied, were knowingly going to bury them alive inside the building.
But this depiction makes little sense when one looks more closely at the order of events depicted by the article:
Israeli troops arrived at the building and told those sheltering inside to leave, explaining it would be “blown up within 10 minutes,” according to interviewee Hoda Harb.
According to interviewee Israa Hassan Ahmed al-Ashkar, the Gazans “did not want to leave the building, but the Israeli military began intensive bombing in the immediate area. They ‘destroyed the building entrance and came upstairs…’”
Then, according to al-Ashkar, “We heard the houses collapsing on the heads of people,” she claimed, and then the ruins of the buildings were bulldozed.
Finally, said al-Ashkar, “They were about to bury us as well, but we begged them to let us out.”
Read together, we’re being told that Israeli troops wanted to evacuate those taking shelter (they “told those sheltering inside to leave”) but also wanted to bury them alive inside (“They were about to bury us as well”) — and this was a building which the soldiers were themselves inside of (“[They]…came upstairs”). We’re also told that the Israeli forces wanted to blow up the building within 10 minutes, but before that, they had enough time to blow up and bulldoze other buildings.
It’s bad journalistic writing by authors either incapable of crafting a clear, coherent story, or intentionally trying to obscure the story in an effort to mislead readers.
The holes in the story would perhaps make more sense had the authors provided additional relevant context.
Consider these three crucial bits of context that should have been mentioned in the article, but weren’t. Each would have provided readers with important information to understand what might have actually happened.
1) Al-Rimal neighborhood is a known Hamas “nest of terror.”
The CNN authors carefully avoid the important question of who, exactly, the Israeli forces were shooting at; readers are only told they were shooting. The omitted detail that likely would have shed light on this question is that al-Rimal neighborhood is well-known for being a “nest of terror.”
From the very beginning of the war, Israeli officials were identifying al-Rimal as one of the key “terror hubs” (see, e.g., here and here). Since then, Israel has provided substantial evidence of terrorists having embedded themselves in and underneath civilian infrastructure.
In mid-November alone, Israeli troops located approximately 35 tunnel shafts in the area, along with numerous military posts and weapons in residential areas. In early December, troops found terror infrastructure and a large number of weapons and military equipment inside Al-Azhar University, along with a tunnel running from the campus to a school a kilometer away. A week later, troops found Hamas terrorists hiding inside two schools in the al-Rimal neighborhood. Just days later, Israeli forces killed and captured terrorists in yet another school in al-Rimal, including one who had participated in the October 7 massacre.
Shortly after, the IDF uncovered the massive amount of Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Palestine Square, located in al-Rimal, including command and control centers in buildings and terror tunnels located amongst residential buildings, commercial buildings, and even a school for deaf children. In another incident, Israeli soldiers were saved from an ambush by a terrorist lying in wait inside of a building by an Oketz Unit canine named Toy, who bravely neutralized the terrorist.
In fact, based on one map produced by the IDF, one of the buildings in which they found a terror tunnel back in December was located just a few blocks away from the building that is the subject of CNN’s article.
Several blocks in the other direction, Hamas terrorists had barricaded themselves inside the Blue Beach Hotel, launching missiles at Israeli forces, in early January. The IDF then found seven tunnel shafts inside the hotel, as well as a large quantity of weapons and drones. Given the estimates about how many buildings have contained terrorists, terrorist equipment, or terrorist infrastructure, it is almost guaranteed that even more was found in the vicinity as Israeli forces approached the building in question.
Despite the abundant evidence of Hamas having systematically embedded itself in civilian structures in the area, the journalists demonstrate zero interest in this crucial context. The authors include only a generalized, boilerplate statement from the IDF about operating against “Hamas strongholds” – hidden halfway through the article – as if that absolves them of their responsibility to investigate and report about this critical aspect of the story themselves.
But if it turns out, as seems highly likely, that those incidents of “shooting” referenced by the Gazan women occurred because there were Hamas or other Palestinian terrorists in the vicinity, then the authors’ decision to omit this context becomes indefensible.
2) Hamas has been repeatedly caught exploiting civilian shelters.
A related piece of context, omitted by Salman and Al Sawalhi, is the documented pattern of Palestinian terrorists exploiting civilian shelters, like the building in question, for military purposes in Gaza. Among the incidents that have been documented during the current war:
A school in Jabaliya, serving as a civilian shelter, in which troops of the 551st Brigade located weapons belonging to Hamas terrorists. (Times of Israel, December 21)
In northern Gaza, a building in which civilians were sheltering also contained a large cache of weapons used by Hamas, including “explosive belts adapted for children,” “dozens of mortars,” and “hundreds of grenades.” The building was notably located near a school, a mosque, and a clinic. (Times of Israel, December 24; see also images of the weaponry found at IDF, December 24)
In the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, Hamas terrorists were found in a school serving as a shelter. A cache of weapons was also found inside, including assault rifles, grenades, and other explosive devices. (Times of Israel, December 24)
In al-Bureij, troops of the 188th Brigade were fired on by terrorists hiding inside of a school sheltering civilians. (IDF, December 30 (see also video here))
One is left to wonder whether something similar occurred at the building in al-Rimal. Were the explosions nearby because the IDF was fighting terrorists? Did the IDF demolish the building because there was terrorist infrastructure inside? Were terrorists using the building for military purposes in some other way?
It would amount to journalistic malpractice if the authors did not even bother to ask the witnesses about this. Assuming they did, why, then, would they not mention this in the article? Given the article includes the allegation that the Israeli forces “abducted” the men in the building, don’t the journalists have a responsibility to investigate why they were detained?
3) The IDF had been urging them to evacuate for nearly four months.
Israel had been calling on Gazan civilians to evacuate northern Gaza, including al-Rimal neighborhood, for nearly four months. As far back as October 13, when conditions were much better, the IDF was “call[ing] for the evacuation of all civilians of Gaza City from their homes southwards for their own safety and protection and move to the area south of the Wadi Gaza…” In that same announcement, the IDF cited the exact reasons mentioned above: “Hamas terrorists are hiding in Gaza City inside tunnels underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent Gazan civilians.”
But the IDF was warning residents of al-Rimal neighborhood more specifically even earlier than that. The IDF was already sending warnings to residents in the area to evacuate as early as October 10, as the neighborhood was a known “power base” for Hamas and thus was one of the areas targeted by airstrikes early in the war.
Perhaps those CNN spoke to simply were simply unable to evacuate at any point during those four months for one reason or another. But why did the authors not mention that the IDF had been trying to get civilians to leave the area for a long time for the stated reason of getting them out of harm’s way?
All of this omitted context, and all of these unexplored questions, point to either exceedingly lazy or intensely biased journalism. Neither is a good look for the network, which is more than capable of producing excellent journalism.
David M. Litman is a Research Analyst at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.
The post Once Again, CNN Distorts Gaza War and Ignores Israel’s Efforts to Protect Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Haaretz Claim That IDF Was Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Gazans Refuted by Translation Discrepancies, Contradictions, and Eyewitness Accounts
Gazans receiving humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Col. Richard Kemp
A recent Haaretz exposé accusing the Israeli military of ordering troops to fire at unarmed civilians near food aid sites in Gaza relied on mistranslation, selective quotes, factual omissions, and contradictions to construct a narrative of unprovoked Israeli violence, according to independent observers interviewed by The Algemeiner.
Debunking the claim of indiscriminate fire by the IDF, the experts instead described widespread fear of Hamas, not the Israeli military.
The Haaretz report quickly gained traction in international media. Titled “’It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid,” it was cited by outlets such as NPR, CNN, and Reuters, .
British military analyst Andrew Fox criticized the article for its framing and language. One of the discrepancies he pointed to was the shift in the English version of the story from soldiers firing “towards” civilians, as stated in the Hebrew original, to “at” them. The original Hebrew subheader also specified that soldiers were told to fire “towards” crowds “to distance them” from the aid sites, suggesting the shooting took place as a means of crowd control.
“It’s a matter of intent,” Fox told The Algemeiner. The phrase “‘at civilians’ means they are trying to kill them. It’s misleading because they’re firing warnings to avoid harm rather than shooting to cause harm.”
“Warning shots are something all armies do — we did in Afghanistan — but when you pull the trigger there’s always a risk of harm, and that’s not great,” explained Fox, a think tank researcher and former British Army officer. “Still, there’s a huge difference between that and deliberately targeting civilians.”
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said that “shooting towards,” as in the original Hebrew, was “quite reasonable as a means to exercise crowd control in a war zone.”
“It is highly unlikely the IDF would be ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians unless they directly endangered them,” Kemp told The Algemeiner, citing Israel’s interest in the success of US-backed humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza. “The IDF rigidly follows laws of war. It makes no sense for the IDF to want to damage aid efforts. They cooperate with and facilitate [the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] and want it to succeed. The ones who want it to fail are Hamas because it deprives them of control and funds. If anyone has been doing this shooting, it would be Hamas. They have the motive the IDF do not.”
There were other discrepancies in the original headline and its translation. Whereas the Hebrew version reads “Soldiers testify: IDF deliberately shoots towards Gazans near aid collection points,” the English version not only omitted any reference to mediating testimony or attribution, but also framed the event as an empirical fact: “IDF soldiers ordered to shoot deliberately at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid.” Further, the phrase “waiting for humanitarian aid” may carry specific legal implications under international law, suggesting heightened vulnerability, whereas the Hebrew version referred more vaguely to crowds “near aid collection points.”
The subheader — which claimed soldiers were ordered to fire at unarmed civilians “even when no threat was present” — conflicted with the body of the text, which acknowledged that Israeli soldiers were wounded near the aid distribution zones. One sentence, appearing for the first time in the 21st paragraph, stood out: “There were also fatalities and injuries among IDF soldiers in these incidents.” The piece offered no explanation for how such casualties could occur if, as the article claims, no one else present was armed.
Elsewhere in the article, a soldier is quoted describing the IDF creating a “killing field,” supposedly involving heavy machine guns, mortars, and grenade launchers. But if such weapons were used with lethal intent, as Fox pointed out in a Substack post, the casualty rate would be far higher than the one to five reported per day. “That’s not a massacre,” he wrote, going on to quip that the only massacre to take place was one of “journalistic standards by Haaretz.”
“Could some soldiers accidentally miss and hit someone?” Fox wrote. “Yes. That is tragic and warrants investigation. However, the article itself acknowledges that the IDF is already examining those incidents. To jump from that to ‘deliberate killing fields’ is not responsible reporting. It is narrative laundering.”
The lack of video footage of the alleged mass shootings near GHF sites raises questions, given the large volume of media typically produced from Gaza, according to Fox, who noted that Hamas has repeatedly circulated images and clips for propaganda purposes.
“Every Gazan has a mobile phone, and numerous videos of other events have been released,” he wrote. “Why is there a total absence of any credible footage of these supposed IDF combined arms assaults on queuing civilians?”
Kemp, who visited two of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution sites in the days following the report’s publication, described hearing distant gunfire but reported that the aid operation proceeded mostly without disruption.
Col. Richard Kemp at humanitarian aid site with Gazans. Photo: Provided
“None of the Gazans there showed any concerns [about the IDF] whatsoever,” he said. Many of the civilians identified Hamas, not the IDF, as the main threat to the aid effort — a dynamic not acknowledged in the Haaretz report — telling Kemp they could not return home for fear of being recognized and targeted by Hamas.
“I must have spoken to at least 50 Gazans at each site,” he said. “Many told me they feared Hamas and Hamas threatened them if they used the sites.”
Kemp added that the atmosphere was chaotic but manageable, with GHF workers — most of them local Gazans — interfacing directly with the crowds. He described people smiling, holding up food packages, and expressing gratitude for the aid.
“The overwhelming impression was how grateful they were to be getting free aid for once, as opposed to buying aid looted by Hamas and sold at a premium,” he told The Algemeiner.
Many Gazans at the GHF sites who spoke to Kemp voiced hatred for Hamas and praised the US-backed aid effort, with some chanting “kill Hamas” while others said “I love America” or expressed admiration for President Donald Trump. The alignment between Hamas and UN criticism of the food program was “shocking,” Kemp added, particularly given the visible gratitude expressed by many recipients.
“They associate this aid program with the US,” he said. “They seem to like it, whereas Hamas and the UN seem to be its greatest enemies.”
The post Haaretz Claim That IDF Was Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Gazans Refuted by Translation Discrepancies, Contradictions, and Eyewitness Accounts first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former Australian Nurses Charged Over Threatening Viral Video Banned from NDIS
Illustrative: Supporters of Hamas gather for a rally in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Reuters/Joel Carrett
Two former Australian nurses who were charged over a viral video in which they allegedly threatened to kill Israeli patients have been banned from working under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), four months after being suspended from their jobs at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, both 27, gained international attention after they were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night shift conversation with Israeli influencer Max Veifer.
The widely circulated footage, which sparked international outrage and condemnation, showed Abu Lebdeh declaring she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them, while Nadir made a throat-slitting gesture and claimed he had already killed many.
Following the incident, New South Wales authorities suspended their nursing registrations and banned them from working as nurses nationwide. They are now also prohibited from working with or providing any services — paid or unpaid — to NDIS participants for two years.
This latest ban, which took effect on May 9, applies nationwide and prohibits Nadir and Abu Lebdeh from working with NDIS participants or performing any role for or on behalf of NDIS providers in any Australian state or territory.
Abu Lebdeh was charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass. If convicted, she faces up to 22 years in prison.
Nadir was charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug.
Currently, both of them remain free on bail and have not yet entered any pleas, with a court appearance scheduled for July 29. They’ve been prohibited from leaving Australia or using social media while their cases proceed.
According to Nadir’s lawyer, the video was captured “without the consent and knowledge” of his client, and he intends to argue for its exclusion from court.
“We will be challenging the admissibility of the video recording because it was a private conversation which was recorded by the person overseas without my client’s consent and without his knowledge,” Nadir’s lawyer said. “That video recording was made secretly overseas and was unlawfully obtained.”
This incident, which drew international attention, occurred amid a surge of antisemitic acts across Australia since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October 2023, with Jewish institutions targeted in arson attacks and businesses defaced.
Antisemitism spiked to record levels in Australia — especially in Sydney and Melbourne, which are home to some 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population — following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, with the escalation continuing amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
According to a report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the country’s Jewish community experienced over 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, more than quadrupling from 495 in the prior 12 months.
The number of antisemitic physical assaults in Australia rose from 11 in 2023 to 65 in 2024. The level of antisemitism for the past year was six times the average of the preceding 10 years.
The post Former Australian Nurses Charged Over Threatening Viral Video Banned from NDIS first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A victim of the antisemitic Boulder, Colorado firebombing died on Monday, prompting local law enforcement to charge suspect Mohamed Soliman with murder in the first degree.
“Severe injuries” caused the death of Karen Diamond, 82, the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office (BCDA) said on Monday in a statement. She was one of 13 people injured when Soliman hurled Molotov cocktails into a crowd of Jewish people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. Her death adds five new charges to the over 200 federal and state criminal charges which could lock Soliman away for over 600 years.
“These additional charges, including the counts of First Degree Murder, are being filed after consultation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Boulder Police Department,” said the DA’s office, adding that it “continues to work closely with federal, state, and local partners in the strong response to this attack. We stand united against acts of antisemitism and hate.”
“This horrific attack has now claimed the life of an innocent person who was beloved by her family and friends,” said Michal Dougherty, district attorney of Boulder County. “Our hearts are with the Diamond family during this incredibly difficult time. Our office will fight for justice for the victims, their loved ones, and the community. Part of what makes Colorado special is that people come together in response to a tragedy; I know that the community will continue to unite in supporting the Diamond family and all the victims of this attack.”
Prosecutors said in May that Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack, and, according to court documents, told investigators that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”
That incident came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, also yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
In Garret Park, Maryland, a middle-aged man, Clift A. Seferlis, was recently arrested by federal authorities for sending a series of threatening messages to Jewish organizations in Philadelphia. Seferlis referenced the war in Gaza in his communications.
“The Victim Jewish Institution 1 received numerous additional messages since April 1, 2024, which contained a threat to physically destroy the institution,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a statement. “Prior to the receipt of the May 7, 2025, mailing, Victim Jewish Institution 1 and its employees had received very similar-looking letters, believed to have been sent by Seferlis, which referenced Victim Jewish Institution 1’s ‘many big open windows,’ ‘Kristallnacht,’ ‘anger and rage,’ and a future need to ‘rebuild’ the institution following its destruction.”
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where Juan Diaz-Rivas, Alejandro Flores-Lamas, and others law enforcement is working to identify, allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and Flores-Lamas, along with their associates, approached the victim while shouting “F—ck the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to the office of the San Francis district attorney.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to data released by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) latest Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in April, antisemitism in the US is surging to break “all previous annual records.”
In 2024 alone, the ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, an eruption of hatred not recorded in the nearly thirty years since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“In 2024, hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence, said when the report was released. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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