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The Media Has Ignored 11 Months of Hezbollah Attacks to Blame Israel for Recent Violence
Firefighters respond to a fire near a rocket attack from Lebanon, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, near Kiryat Shmona, northern Israel, June 14, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
On Monday, September 23, hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah escalated, as the IDF struck hundreds of terror targets in southern Lebanon and Beirut. Meanwhile, the Iran-backed terror group launched volleys of rockets, missiles, and drones deep into northern and central Israel.
Israel’s strikes targeted Hezbollah’s terror infrastructure, marking the latest in a week-long effort to halt the group’s relentless bombardment of northern Israel since October 8. The operation aims to stop the barrage, and enable tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to return home along the Lebanese border.
To minimize Lebanese civilian casualties, the IDF issued warnings through text messages, phone calls, and radio alerts, urging civilians to evacuate areas where Hezbollah hides its weapons.
Yet, despite the precision of Israel’s operations, multiple news outlets ran headlines framing the strikes as indiscriminate, and casting Israel as the primary instigator of tensions along its northern border.
Hezbollah has been relentlessly bombarding Israel’s north for 11 months. Over the last few days, the IDF has been targeting the terror group’s members and weapons in order to put a stop to it.
However, you would never know this from reading these media headlines. pic.twitter.com/H4qZJCoZ5o
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 24, 2024
For example, The Washington Post’s headline described Israel’s precision strikes on Hezbollah’s terror infrastructure as “Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes pound Lebanon,” while its subheading placed equal blame on both Israel and Hezbollah for escalating the conflict.
This framing conveniently ignored that Hezbollah initiated the violence by launching rockets at northern Israel on October 8, 2023 — and continuing until today:
Similarly, headlines by Voice of America and NBC News reported on Israeli strikes against Lebanon, giving the misleading impression that Israel was targeting the Lebanese state as a whole, rather than focusing on the terror organization that controls southern Lebanon.
Headlines from the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, and Politico focused solely on Lebanese casualties, omitting the fact that these numbers included Hezbollah fighters. They also failed to mention that Israel’s strikes were aimed at Hezbollah’s weapon caches and personnel.
Anyone reading these headlines would be left with the false impression that Israel was conducting an indiscriminate bombing campaign against innocent Lebanese civilians, devoid of any clear tactical objective.
In another headline, the Associated Press accused Israel of “escalating” the conflict, conveniently ignoring Hezbollah’s months-long campaign of rocket attacks on northern Israel and the recent intensification of its strikes on Israeli civilian areas.
Here’s @AP accusing Israel of “escalating” a conflict while it defends itself against relentless Hezbollah attacks.
In what world does this pass for objective reporting? https://t.co/tYZw6qqlcm pic.twitter.com/Baz9wBT2gp
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 24, 2024
One of the most egregious headlines came from Sky News, which accused Israel of “provoking” Hezbollah into fully deploying its arsenal.
In the bizarre worldview of Sky News and its international affairs editor, Dominic Waghorn, Israel is painted as an irrational aggressor while Hezbollah is portrayed as a rational, restrained entity. Only by completely disregarding Hezbollah’s actions over the past 11 months could such a tone-deaf headline be justified.
It’s not just the headlines causing issues. CNN’s ongoing coverage of the escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah has consistently pushed a narrative that Israel shows little concern for civilians caught in the crossfire. CNN has largely placed the blame for rising tensions on Israel, downplaying Hezbollah’s role in initiating the conflict 11 months ago and its relentless bombardment of northern Israel ever since.
By fixating on Israel’s strikes against Hezbollah positions while disregarding or downplaying the terror group’s central role in this conflict, the media not only undermines Israel’s legitimate acts of self-defense in the court of public opinion, but also provides cover for Hezbollah to continue its aggression against the Jewish State.
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.
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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.