Palestinians pass by the gate of an UNRWA-run school in Nablus in the West Bank. Photo: Reuters/Abed Omar Qusini.

Few. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands.

Each of these words denotes vastly different quantities. They all provide important information in war coverage, where numbers play an important role. For instance, an Oct. 30 Reuters headline states: “Israeli strike kills dozens in north Gaza residential block, US calls incident ‘horrifying.’“

The first paragraphs of Nidal Al-Mughrabi’s accompanying story provide more details about the dozens of reported fatalities:

At least 93 Palestinians were killed or missing and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a residential building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya on Tuesday, the Gaza health ministry said, and the U.S. called the incident “horrifying”.

Medics said at least 20 children were among the dead.

“A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and civil defence crews cannot reach them,” the territory’s health ministry said in a statement.

Later on Tuesday, Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza government media office, put the number of fatalities at 93.

That’s a great deal of emphasis on numbers. Clearly, numbers are newsworthy, and their accurate depiction is essential for reliable reporting. Thus, with regard to the 93 Palestinians reported killed or missing, Reuters’ headline rightly refers to “dozens,” not “a few.”

Yet, when it comes to the thousands of UNRWA staffers whom Israel has accused of holding membership in terror organizations, with hundreds of them said to be serving as military operatives, Reuters’ recounting of numbers suddenly lacks the precision which characterized the reporting of the reported Palestinian fatalities.

Not only does Al-Mughrabi fail to report the actual number, but his stand in for the figure is downright false.

Thus, Al-Mughrabi grossly underreports the number of UNRWA employees that Israel has said belong to terror organizations, erring:

Israeli officials cited the involvement of a handful of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees’ thousands of staffers in the Oct. 7, 2023 attack and a few staffers’ membership in Hamas and other armed groups. [Emphasis added.]

“Few” means a small number. And yet Israel has accused more than 2000 UNRWA staffers of belonging to terror organizations.

“Few” is not a fair stand in for more than 90 reported fatalities, and Reuters rightly cited “dozens” in that case. All the more so, “few” is a false representation of more than 450 reported UNRWA staffers who moonlight as military operatives.

With respect to more than 2,000, which is how many UNRWA staffers Israel has accused of possessing membership in Hamas or other terror organizations (either as military operatives or otherwise), “few” is a farce.

As Reuters itself reported in March, Israel cited more than 450 UNRWA employees moonlighting for Hamas as military operatives (“Israel says over 450 UN aid agency workers in Gaza are ‘military operatives“).

Reuters reported at the time:

Israel’s military said on Monday that the U.N. aid agency UNRWA in Gaza employed over 450 “military operatives” from Hamas and other armed groups, and that Israel has shared this intelligence with the United Nations. . . .

“Over 450 UNRWA employees are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza. Over 450. This is no mere coincidence. This is systematic. There is no claiming ‘We did not know’,” military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in a briefing.

“We sent the information that I am sharing now, as well as further intelligence, to our international partners, including the U.N.,” he said.

#Breaking: IDF Spokesperson releases a full statement on UNRWA:

“Over 450 @UNRWA employees are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza… This is no mere coincidence, this is systematic. There is no claiming: ‘we didn’t know.’” pic.twitter.com/hJFHZA86ps

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) March 5, 2024

Moreover, Israel’s Foreign Ministry has cited more than 2,315 UNRWA employees with membership in Hamas or Islamic Jihad — meaning both “military operatives” and members with non-combat positions (administrative, finance, propaganda, social welfare, education, etc).

Voice of America quoted Adi Farjon, deputy permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations in Geneva:

“For example, it is a fact, that 19 members of the organization took an active part in the October 7 terrorist attack. It is also a fact that more than 2,135 UNRWA workers in Gaza are members of either Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” she said.

Last week, CAMERA contacted Reuters reminding editors of its own coverage of Israel’s information concerning the several hundred UNRWA employees who double as terror operatives, and also informing the news agency about the Foreign Ministry’s information regarding 2,135 UNRWA staffers who belong to terror groups. Yet, as of this writing, Reuters has failed to rectify the “few” falsehood.

Reducing thousands to a few gives readers a “few” reasons to question Reuters’ stated commitment to trust, integrity, and freedom of bias.

The Arabic version of the same Reuters article also grossly underreports the number of UNRWA employees Israel has accused of belonging to terror groups. It says that “a small number of staffers joined Hamas and other armed groups.”

Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website.

The post Why Won’t the Media Tell the Truth About UNRWA’s Connection to Palestinian Terrorism? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Israeli tanks are being moved, amid cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in the Golan Heights, Sept. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

Three elements of distorted reporting plague a recent Financial Times piece about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict: Deceitful writing, selective choice of interviews, and emotional framing. The result is that the average reader of the piece, titled “The demolitions clearing Israel’s ‘first belt’ in Lebanon,” can’t help but view the Jewish State as a rogue nation arbitrarily carrying out mass destruction of Lebanese villages.

The piece includes 34 lengthy paragraphs, intermingled with maps, videos, images, and infographics, showing controlled demolitions conducted by the IDF in Lebanese villages along the border.

But Israel’s stated reason for these demolitions — destroying Hezbollah’s tunnel network that has threatened Israel’s north — appears only in the 24th paragraph.

In today’s fast-paced news consumption environment, few bother reading below the digital “fold” of the first two paragraphs.

It’s also a journalistic sin to bury the very reaction that provides an answer to one of the most fundamental 5 W’s of reporting: the “Why?” — Why does Israel do what the story reports on?

Instead of including such information high at the top, the Financial Times speculates that Israel wants to create a 3-kilometer buffer zone along the border. Why? No answer.

The article does not even mention Hezbollah’s mega-plan to invade Israel’s northern communities and duplicate the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023.

But not only is the writing deceitful — the use of “experts” interviewed for the piece, as well as the use of demolition videos, is agenda-driven.

The piece quotes two “analysts” who make Israel look like the aggressor: A legal expert with a clear anti-Israeli stance and a retired Lebanese army general who is interviewed as an authority on the strategy of the Israeli army.

But despite using videos that clearly show the demolition of underground tunnel infrastructure — as any munitions expert can verify — no such expert has been interviewed by the Financial Times.

This is especially alarming considering the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit has distributed such videos as proof of the existence of Hezbollah’s tunnels underneath Lebanese villages — which makes those villages legitimate military targets under international law.

With eight journalists working on the piece, not to mention editors, the omission of this information suggests ignorance, at best, or bias, at worst.

So HonestReporting has done what the Financial Times should have done and contacted Israeli military expert Sarit Zehavi, the President of the Alma Research Center. Here’s what she said after reading the article:

The overwhelming majority of the videos in this article clearly show the explosion of tunnel structures. Some of them were filmed by journalists that the IDF allowed into the area before they were detonated. Hezbollah has turned every house in southern Lebanon into a military site. According to international law, it is permissible to attack military sites. The amount of munitions that the IDF is removing from there, the explosion patterns in the videos of IDF strikes, and the secondary explosions in the munitions storage facilities — all of these are clear evidence supporting this claim.

Emotional Framing

But all of this is lost on the readers. Because the entire piece is framed with the emotional story of a Lebanese family whose ancestral village was demolished by the Israeli army.

In fact, five paragraphs at the top of the article and four at the bottom detail the emotional pain of one of the family’s sons, who currently lives in Beirut. It seems like none of his relatives was physically hurt.

Indeed, in journalism, it’s always a good idea to bring the voice of the people, but here it’s done explicitly to frame the narrative.

It seems that the reporters didn’t even bother asking the family member whether his village was indeed near/above terror infrastructure — like the IDF has repeatedly shown regarding many “civilian” houses in the area.

But asking questions may ruin the imaginary narratives of biased reporters.

So they deceive, omit and frame reality instead.

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 The Financial Times Distorts Reality to Paint Israel as Aggressor in Lebanon first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Montreal city hall unveiled its updated roadmap to combat racism and racial profiling on Oct. 29. But instead of kudos for their accomplishments thus far, they got an earful. Criticism […]

The post A plan for combatting racism in Montreal is criticized for not addressing rising antisemitism appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.