RSS
How the Media Skews the Narrative: Israelis ‘Died,’ Palestinians ‘Killed’
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
According to The Los Angeles Times on November 4, some 1,200 Israelis “died” in the Israel-Hamas war while some 9,000 Palestinians were “killed.”
Just like that, with a few casual clicks of the keyboard, a major US paper whitewashed Hamas’ ISIS-like atrocities, including the mass slaughter of primarily civilians and also soldiers, beheadings, rapes, mutilations, torture, parents killed in front of children and vice versa.
What President Joe Biden decried as “pure, unadulterated evil,” Los Angeles Times staff writer Ashley Ahn passed off as a “surprise offensive.”
In her Nov. 4 article, (“Hundreds rally at Israeli consulate in L.A., calling for cease-fire in Gaza,” page B1 in the Nov. 5 print edition), the Los Angeles Times fellow and former editor of the University of Pennsylvania’s campus paper intoned:
The protests come amid an escalating war between Israel and Hamas militants, who launched a surprise offensive from neighboring Gaza on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Since then, more than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, with Palestinian militants continuing to hold about 220 people hostage. More than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.
New to the LA Times newsroom, the young Ahn might be forgiven for concealing the nature of the gruesome terror attacks murdering hundreds of civilians at a dance party and countless families in their homes, including children slaughtered in their bedrooms or cowering with their parents at safe rooms.
But what about editors who reviewed and approved the story for publishing? What about deputy editor for California, Hector Becerra, who shared Ahn’s story on X, formerly Twitter?
According to the paper’s website, The Los Angeles Times’ fellowship program in which Ahn participates, includes:
… six weeks of instruction on how to operate, navigate and succeed in a major newsroom, with training geared toward their specific interests. The next stage of their program includes multiweek rotations across the newsroom, where they will write, produce, edit, create visual projects and more, with coaching from seasoned members of The Times’ staff.
But what training can we expect from a staff which includes nine journalists who signed an open letter penned by journalists against ethical journalism calling for reporting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the false lens of “Israel’s military occupation and its system of apartheid”?
In a recent Los Angeles Times opinion piece, Jonah Goldberg highlighted the critical role of the editor (“Will the media get coverage of the crisis in Israel and Gaza right? It all depends on the editors“):
What do good editors do? Beyond all of the meat-and-potatoes grammar and style stuff, editors slow the process down as a necessary part of quality control. They tell reporters that an unverified rumor is not printable without adequate verification. They tell opinion columnists that a histrionic argument that ignores contrary evidence needs to be shelved or reworked. They stand against the tide of momentary collective passion or the irrepressible ambition of individual journalists to maintain a higher standard for the institution as a whole.
What if those establishing the higher standard for the institution as a whole include Sara Yasin, the paper’s managing editor, who has apparently embraced the Hamas narrative on X, reposting material accusing Israel of “mass ethnic cleansing” and a “genocidal assault”?
Can we count on such an editor to instruct young journalists not to cover up Hamas’ horrific barbarity? Will she point out the unacceptable double standard of covering up these innocent civilian victims’ horrific murders (they “died”) even as the report manages clearly to state that the perpetrators of the atrocities were “killed”?
(Indeed, the casualty totals released by Hamas’ “Health Ministry” includes the estimated 1,500 Hamas terrorists who were killed as they carried out the massacre within Israeli).
And what if the daughter of the paper’s owner takes an active role in the paper, “advocat[ing]” for her interests, as Nika Soon-Shiong has acknowledged she does? And what if those interests include her sentiment, shared on X, that “It’s not journalistic malpractice to describe the state of Israel as an Apartheid state. This is well-established in international law”?
If Soon-Shiong’s egregiously baseless position represents the “higher standard for the institution as a whole,” what hope is there for the paper to get coverage of the crisis in Israel and Gaza right? Ethical journalism dies alongside some 1,200 Israelis.
Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website.
The post How the Media Skews the Narrative: Israelis ‘Died,’ Palestinians ‘Killed’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.
The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.
They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.
Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.
Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.
The post Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.
The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.
Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.
He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.
The post Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.
Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.
Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.
Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.
Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.
The post Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.