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Irish Times Invites Readers to Watch Blood Libel Movie About Palestinian ‘Martyrs’ Capital’
A Palestinian man walks near Israeli military vehicles, during an Israeli raid in Jenin, in the West Bank, August 31, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad
The Irish Times has published some breathtakingly poor journalism over the years. It once described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as evidence of a national “thirst for war,” defended Hezbollah as a “defensive” force in Lebanon, and, in one memorable dispatch, its Middle East correspondent appeared impressed by the idea of the Iranian regime launching a hypersonic missile at Tel Aviv.
Yet even by those standards, the paper’s latest international story marks a new low.
Authored by that same Middle East correspondent — Michael Jansen — the piece is headlined: “Israeli army intensifies attack on Jenin refugee camp in northern West Bank.”
Unsurprisingly, the body of the article is every bit as misleading as its title suggests.
Even beyond the headline that claims Israel is attacking a refugee camp rather than the terrorists inside, this @IrishTimes story is a case study in bias.
Let’s take a closer look.
pic.twitter.com/0oLU9ngjka
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 1, 2025
The opening paragraphs read more like a dramatic screenplay than a news report.
According to Jansen, the Israeli military is not conducting counterterror operations targeting Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other armed groups embedded in Jenin. Instead, she frames the operation as an unprovoked, almost vindictive, disruption of a sacred holiday:
The Israeli army on Monday intensified its 70-day assault on Jenin city and the adjacent Palestinian refugee camp … Despite the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, Israel troop reinforcements and armoured vehicles stormed the city … and ransacked dwellings. In the Jenin refugee camp, Israeli forces demolished homes and ravaged infrastructure.
Conspicuously absent is any acknowledgment that these raids are targeting entrenched terrorist networks that operate from within densely populated civilian areas — a grim reality that imposes both legal and moral obligations on Israel to act.
The irony, of course, is glaring. Jansen bemoans the desecration of Eid, yet omits any mention of Palestinian terror attacks deliberately timed to coincide with Jewish holidays — including Hamas’ October 7 massacre on Simchat Torah.
She also neglects the rocket attacks launched during Ramadan in 2021 by the very same groups Israel is now confronting. Evidently, Jansen is more concerned about the sanctity of Islamic holidays than Hamas is.
Later in the piece, Jansen refers to Jenin as the center of “resistance,” quite literally borrowing Hamas’ terminology without the slightest nod to Israel’s far more accurate descriptor: a hub of terrorism.
Jenin has long served as a launchpad for deadly attacks and is home to some of the West Bank’s most unrepentant perpetrators of violence.
The article then ends with a bizarre cinematic endorsement — of a film that has done more than almost any other to spread one of the most persistent and damaging blood libels in recent memory:
That assault inspired the film Jenin, Jenin, which contributed to the camp’s reputation and made it an anti-occupation beacon.
In fact, Jenin, Jenin is a widely discredited propaganda film that peddles the thoroughly debunked lie that Israeli forces committed a massacre in 2002 — a fabrication repeatedly disproven by international investigations but still parroted by anti-Israel activists and antisemites alike.
The Irish Times is no longer just editorializing against Israel. It is now platforming and promoting blood libels in its international news section. Just when you thought it couldn’t sink any lower.
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.
The post Irish Times Invites Readers to Watch Blood Libel Movie About Palestinian ‘Martyrs’ Capital’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.