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Media Accused Israel of ‘Strike’ on Palestinians Who Died in Gaza City Aid Truck Stampede
An UNRWA aid truck at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
Early on February 29, crowds of Palestinians had gathered in Gaza City ahead of an expected delivery by a convoy of aid trucks.
Witnesses described scenes of pandemonium, as hordes of people trampled each other as they swarmed the vehicles when they arrived at around 4 am.
According to the IDF, which released satellite imagery of the incident, dozens of Palestinians were killed in the stampede, while others died as a result of being hit by the aid trucks in the city’s Rimal neighborhood.
Israeli military officials also said that up to 10 Palestinians died when the IDF was forced to open fire on a group that rushed toward them.
When officials in the Hamas-controlled enclave announced what had occurred, they did what they have done repeatedly since the outbreak of war on October 7 — lied to an international media that they knew would uncritically broadcast the falsehood to millions worldwide.
And that is how it came to be that last Thursday — hours after the incident — the Associated Press failed to do even the bare minimum of fact-checking and announced in a headline that an Israeli “strike on Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza” had killed and wounded dozens.
This is just a snapshot of how media such as @AP & @France24_en trust Hamas claims and end up spreading falsehoods around the globe with real-life consequences.
Update: IDF probe says Israeli gunfire caused only some 10 casualties out of the hundreds of people allegedly hurt and… https://t.co/TDD6PYHNtq pic.twitter.com/lUzVwYIdfR
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 29, 2024
The report opened: “An apparent Israeli strike on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza City on Thursday has killed and wounded dozens, according to local hospital officials.”
While the Associated Press later updated its story, the damage was done: countless people saw a headline that accused Israel of striking innocent Palestinians simply waiting for aid trucks.
If @AP relies on unverified information from “Gaza officials,” i.e. Hamas, you get inaccurate and inflammatory headlines like this.
It was no “strike.”
According to the IDF, dozens of Gazans were injured as a result of pushing and shoving as they attempted to loot the aid… pic.twitter.com/cLbk24LC1i
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 29, 2024
Meanwhile, France 24 also ran with claims of an Israeli strike and rushed off a headline that claimed: “Dozens killed in strike on crowd waiting for aid in Gaza City.”
The effect of the AP — which has partnerships with the world’s biggest media organizations — publishing such a wildly inaccurate claim cannot be understated.
Any inaccuracy by one of the major wire agencies is liable to be repeated by numerous newspapers and news websites everywhere.
The media rushed to report Hamas’ false claim that the IDF had killed dozens in a strike against Palestinians waiting for aid. But what really happened, and who is responsible?@AP @France24_en @haaretzcom pic.twitter.com/V3Ht9OvYLd
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) March 2, 2024
When the incorrect stories were eventually updated to more accurately reflect what happened, including removing incendiary claims of an Israeli missile strike, some media outlets still insisted on falsely suggesting that Israeli soldiers firing at innocent people caused most casualties.
The Wall Street Journal, for example, failed to mention the stampede in a headline that simply said Israel had opened fire on Palestinians who were “surrounding” aid trucks.
The Wall Street Journal
The Independent even tacitly defended Hamas in a headline that claimed “dozens of Palestinians” were “apparently” shot by the IDF.
It was only in the sixth paragraph of the piece that readers were told that Israeli officials explained that “many of the fatalities occurred in a chaotic crush to reach the food trucks, and that their troops fired because they believed the crowd posed a threat.”
The Independent.
Delving into other reports published about the incident, it is clear that there is a much deeper problem with the international media reporting on these kinds of occurrences: gullibility. Many wide-eyed journalists are far too willing to print the unverified claims of so-called eyewitnesses, presenting their invariably heartbreaking testimony as the unvarnished truth in news reports. The result is stories like that published by The New York Times, which quotes several individuals. As revealed by the Elder of Ziyon blog, at least one person quoted in the piece, who was described as a 22-year-old “journalist,” does not work for any accredited media outlet and only has an online presence consisting of social media profiles.Similarly, a BBC Verify piece about the incident also quoted a “journalist” named Mahmoud Awadeyah, who investigative journalist David Collier uncovered works for a news outlet linked to the Iranian regime.
Even though Awadeyah’s personal social media profiles were awash with praise for terror attacks against innocent Israelis, the BBC did not think twice about relying heavily on his testimony.
The most worrying part of the whole Gaza City stampede reporting debacle is how much it echoes the infamous al-Ahli Hospital explosion incident, in which media outlets rushed to accuse Israel of a deadly missile strike that was actually the result of a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket.
Back then, we were told that such mistakes would not be repeated; media outlets insisted they would be careful in the future and not make false and incendiary claims before the facts become clear.
How hollow those assurances have proven to be.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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