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Damage Done: How Al Jazeera’s Fake Rape Story Harmed Israel’s Reputation in Less than 24 Hours
The Al Jazeera Media Network logo is seen on its headquarters building in Doha, Qatar, June 8, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Naseem Zeitoon
A popular adage states that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.”
In this day and age of social media and up-to-the-minute news, it has never been faster for a lie to travel around the world — and it’s been even harder for the truth to try and catch up.
That was the case last week, when Al Jazeera spread a malicious libel about Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women in Al-Shifa Hospital during the IDF’s ongoing campaign against entrenched Hamas forces there, before quietly removing the story and trying to silently bury it.
Former managing editor of Al Jazeera: allegations of rape at Shifa were all made up, designed to whip up public anger. pic.twitter.com/WjupfO8l1E
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) March 25, 2024
On the morning of March 24, Al Jazeera Arabic’s principal news presenter, Elsy Abi Assi (who is no stranger to antisemitism and denial of Hamas atrocities), interviewed a Gazan woman by the name of Jamila Al-Hessi on live TV. She claimed that Israeli soldiers operating in Al-Shifa Hospital were raping Palestinian women and brutally murdering other Palestinians sheltering in the medical complex.
These allegations soon spread like wildfire on social media, with popular anti-Israel accounts picking up the story and disseminating it to their large English-speaking audiences.
Then, that night, Yasser Abuhilalah, an Al Jazeera columnist and former director, tweeted that a Hamas investigation into these allegations had concluded that they were not true, and that Jamila Al-Hessi had justified her on-air deception by claiming that she had exaggerated her claims in order to “arouse the nation’s fervor and brotherhood.”
According to some analysts, Hamas had decided to issue a rare public denial of these claims since its dissemination among Palestinians in northern Gaza was having the opposite effect than was intended: Instead of producing enmity against Israel, these allegations had caused Palestinians to flee the area in fear for their safety.
Hamas admits: Reports of IDF raping Palestinian women at Shifa hospital are fake; Gaza woman interviewed by Al-Jazeera made it up; why is Hamas admitting it? fake rape story backfired, prompted many families to flee northern Gaza to protect their daughters; this is not what Hamas…
— Israel Radar (@IsraelRadar_com) March 25, 2024
By the next day, Al Jazeera had removed references to Al-Hessi’s claims from its online platforms, but never formally retracted these libels, even though it had uncritically aired them in the first place.
However, by that point, it was too late. The damage to Israel’s reputation had already been done.
In less than 24 hours, millions of people had already viewed Jamila Al-Hessi’s lies on social media and, despite the denial by Hamas itself, continue to do so through a variety of anti-Israel accounts.
As of this last Thursday alone, the story had been viewed 2.3 million times on the X (formerly Twitter) account of Middle East Eye, 918,000 times on the X account of “investigative journalist” Sulaiman Ahmed, 405,000 times on the X account of “human rights activist”/Hamas supporter Ramy Abdu, and over 305,000 times on the X account of alternative media outlet The Cradle.
Some (including Sana Saeed, a journalist affiliated with Al Jazeera) have even gone so far as to voice skepticism of Hamas’ discrediting of Al-Hessi’s story.
BREAKING: ISRAELIS RAPED WOMEN AT AL-SHIFA CONFIRMED BY EYEWITNESS
Palestinian woman Jamila Al-Hisi:
“Israeli Occupation forces have raped and killed women in the vicinity of the hospital” pic.twitter.com/jganqfY5sc
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) March 23, 2024
A horrific testimony from a Palestinian woman upon her exit from Shifa Hospital.
Women have been subjected to rape, starvation, torture, and extrajudicial execution, and the @ICRC is doing nothing.
شهادة مروعة لفلسطينية لحظة خروجها من مستشفى الشفاء.
تعرضت النساء للاغتصاب وتعرضنا… pic.twitter.com/NYAgUDKb1w
— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) March 23, 2024
The allegation of rape by IDF soldiers in Al-Shifa Hospital is not the first lie about Israel and the IDF that has been spread since Hamas’ October 7 terror attack and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza.
However, in this case, it was not spread by a lone social media activist or a fringe news source, but by a news organization that enjoys a veneer of respectability among both news consumers and media outlets around the world.
Despite it serving as an official mouthpiece of the authoritarian Qatari regime, and being accused of echoing Hamas talking points, Al Jazeera is viewed as a trusted source of information about Israel and the Palestinians during the current conflict, as well as over the past several years.
In 2022, HonestReporting uncovered that Al Jazeera had been cited by 16 “top-tier news outlets” 116 times in Israel-related news stories, with most never mentioning the Qatari media organization’s inherent bias.
Also, if not for Hamas deciding that the libel about rapes in Al-Shifa Hospital was not in its best interest and issuing a denial of the allegations, it is highly likely that Al Jazeera would have continued to run with this fabrication as a trusted news story.
It’s now been exactly 24 hours since the “Shifa rape” hoax was exposed, and @AlJazeera has yet to publish an official retraction https://t.co/yGcAQGctx9 pic.twitter.com/DLarOym20c
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) March 25, 2024
In this age of the 24-hour news cycle and instant access to news from around the world, Al Jazeera is serving as a valuable tool in Hamas’ propaganda war, spreading misinformation and sullying Israel’s image around the world at record speeds.
Al Jazeera’s malign influence on the views of social media users is concerning. For mainstream media outlets to rely on it as a source for Israel-related stories is downright journalistic malpractice.
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 Damage Done: How Al Jazeera’s Fake Rape Story Harmed Israel’s Reputation in Less than 24 Hours first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Body of Mohammed Sinwar Recovered from Gaza, Taken to Israel
A screengrab shows according to the Israeli Army, Hamas Gaza chief Mohammed Sinwar, taken from a handout video, released Dec/ 17, 2023. Photo: Israeli Army/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – During excavations carried out recently in the area of the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, several bodies were found – i24NEWS learned on Sunday that one belonged to late Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, which is now being held in Israel.
On Saturday night, the Israel Defense Forces published documentation from the underground space located under the European Hospital in Khan Yunis. The tunnels include a command and control complex from which the fighting was conducted by senior Hamas commanders. During the scans, several additional bodies of terrorists were found.
About three weeks ago, Israel heavily shelled the hospital area, targeting the underground space below it, where the terrorist organization’s headquarters was located. In recent days, Israeli forces have been operating in the area, with an emphasis on underground tunnels, and have located the body. The IDF’s recovery of Sinwar’s body contradicts a previous report, according to which Hamas recovered his body from the tunnel under the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, and buried it in a tunnel in the Deir al-Balah area.
Sinwar was one of the senior and veteran figures in Hamas’ military wing, and took a significant part in the planning and execution of the murderous massacre on October 7, 2023, in which he served as head of the operations headquarters. After the assassination of military commander Mohammed Deif, Sinwar was appointed by his brother, late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, to the position. He was an influential and central factor in the organization’s decision-making, promoting Hamas’s effort to rehabilitate after IDF operations.
Now, Israel possesses the bodies of both Sinwar brothers, with much of the Hamas leadership eliminated in the more than 600 days since the war began.
The post Body of Mohammed Sinwar Recovered from Gaza, Taken to Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Militants Kill Gaza Civilians, Publicly Asserting Brutal Control
A drone view shows buildings lying in ruins, following a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Jan. 19, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Al-Basos
i24 News – The Israeli army released footage from the Gaza Strip on Sunday showing a Palestinian brutally shot dead in public by what the military claims is a Hamas militant.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, General Ghassan Alian, released the footage via military channels. According to the official statement, the brutal execution took place last weekend in a Gaza City square, in front of witnesses. Israeli military authorities described the footage as “exceptional documentation” illustrating the Islamist movement’s methods against its own population.
General Alian addressed the residents of Gaza directly in a statement – “Hamas, terrorists, and criminals are killing you and do not care about your lives,” he said. “There is no difference between a dictator who kills in silence and a terrorist who massacres openly. Both are your enemies and the enemies of life.”
Alian described the act as “a desperate, further, and failed attempt to sow public fear in order to preserve Hamas’s rule, power, and governance, while cynically trampling on and exploiting the residents of Gaza for the survival of the Hamas terrorist regime and the preservation of its rule.”
Meanwhile, the IDF is intensifying its operations in key flashpoints in Gaza, particularly in Jabalia and Khan Yunis. Military forces continue to reach areas where they were not previously present.
The post Hamas Militants Kill Gaza Civilians, Publicly Asserting Brutal Control first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Two of Four Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Building Collapse Identified
Tom Rothstein and the late Uri Jonathan Cohen / Photo: Israeli army spokesman
i24 News – Four Israeli soldiers were killed on Friday in the collapse of a building in Khan Younis during a military operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
The incident occurred during an offensive by the 98th Division targeting Hamas infrastructure in northern Khan Younis, near Bani Suheila.
The fallen soldiers were identified as Staff Sergeant Tom Rotstein, 23, from Ramat Gan; Staff Sergeant Uri Yehonatan Cohen, 20, from Neve Yarok; Reserve Staff Sergeant Chen Gross, 33; and Staff Sergeant Yoav Rovor, 19. All served in the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit.
According to IDF sources, the soldiers were part of a mission to secure a Hamas compound believed to contain underground tunnels. A powerful explosive device detonated during the operation, causing the structure to partially collapse and trap the soldiers inside.
Five additional soldiers were wounded—one seriously and four moderately. They were airlifted to hospitals, while search and recovery teams from the Home Front Command worked for hours to extract the bodies from the rubble.
This latest incident brings the total number of Israeli military fatalities to eight this week alone, raising the overall death toll to 424 since the start of the ground offensive in Gaza.
Earlier this week, three soldiers from the Rotem Battalion of the Givati Brigade were killed by an improvised explosive device in the northern Gaza Strip. Reserve Staff Sergeant Alon Perkas, 27, also died during separate combat in the Shejaiya neighborhood.
The IDF continues its operations in Gaza as military and political leaders navigate the high costs of an enduring conflict with Hamas.
The post Two of Four Israeli Soldiers Killed in Gaza Building Collapse Identified first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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