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Media Minimize Evidence of Hamas Activity in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital
Smoke rises as displaced Palestinians take shelter at Al Shifa hospital, amid the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel, in Gaza City, Nov. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Doaa Rouqa
In recent days, the Israeli army has exposed evidence of Hamas terror activity inside and underneath Gaza’s Shifa hospital. But instead of simply reporting it, media outlets have downplayed the evidence in various ways: By hinting that it has been faked, by claiming that it did not prove the existence of a Hamas “command center,” by quoting unreliable Hamas officials, or simply by burying the story.
By doing so, the media have diverted attention from Israel’s just war against a murderous terror organization, and turned it into a parallel war of narratives suggesting that Israel lacks credibility and therefore the war on Hamas loses legitimacy.
Here is the evidence revealed by the army so far (and this does not include previous evidence of the hospital’s use for terror purposes):
10/27 – A phone call between two Gazans confirming that Hamas headquarters is located underneath Shifa hospital
10/28 – An interrogation of two Hamas terrorists confirming the organization’s use of hospitals, including Shifa
11/3 – A phone call with a Gaza medical official confirming Hamas holds half a million liters of fuel reserves under Shifa hospital
11/15 – Weapons, military gear with Hamas insignia, and technological assets found in Shifa’s MRI building
11/15 – A tunnel shaft and a a booby-trapped vehicle carrying a weapons arsenal are found at Shifa hospital
11/19 – A fortified terror tunnel, 55 meters-long and 10 meters deep, is exposed underneath Shifa hospital
11/19 – CCTV footage from October 7 showing two hostages taken into Shifa hospital
And here are some “highlights” from media outlets that preferred to choose willful blindness over the facts.
CNN and BBC’s “Investigative” Efforts
CNN and the BBC have both invested in what seems to be a significant effort to debunk the Israeli army’s video showing weapons and ammunition at the MRI ward of Shifa.
The two networks have gone to great lengths to hint that Israel may have manipulated evidence. They have checked details like the time on the wristwatch of the Israeli army’s spokesman and the number of weapons he displayed in comparison to a larger amount shot later by international media. As the BBC reported:
And what we see in the two videos doesn’t precisely match. For example, there’s one gun in the IDF video, two, by the time of the BBC footage. Israel has told BBC Verify this is because more weaponry and terrorist assets were discovered throughout the day. Israel also says its video is a single shot with no edits. But this appears to be an edit. We don’t know the reasons for that edit nor how significant it is. The IDF though says suggestions it’s manipulating the media are incorrect.
The BBC did include the army’s claim that more weapons had been found later, but the urgency to debunk IDF evidence is astonishing and one-sided. No such effort was made to debunk the claims of Hamas, which denies operating from the hospital.
The BBC also gave the stage to an “analyst” who claimed that Israel had “doctored” evidence.
But the network failed to mention that the analyst is also a member of the anti-Israel NGO al-Shabaka.
The result is twofold: Undermining Israel’s credibility, while sanitizing the terrorists who stored the weapons — irrespective of the amount — inside the hospital. (And this is just the amount, after Israel announced it was going to put troops in the hospital — meaning Hamas had plenty of time to move them).
The BBC also attempted to show that the evidence falls short of a Hamas “command center” underneath the hospital:
The IDF video also shows military equipment in other locations, though we can’t verify how it came to be there. And what we see in this IDF video doesn’t equate to Israel’s description of al-Shifa as “an operational command center” for Hamas. The US is using a different phrase, saying al-Shifa was used as “a command and control node.” That implies a much smaller facility.
Such a game of terminology is employed in pursuit of portraying Israel as, at best, unreliable, and at worst, a liar — while normalizing the existence of terror weapons inside hospitals.
The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen has made a similar claim:
What has been recovered includes some Kalashnikov rifles – these are common in the Middle East – a tunnel entrance, of which there are many in Gaza, some military uniforms and a booby-trapped vehicle.
Utterly incredible. @BowenBBC trying to “normalize” the presence of weapons in a Gaza hospital. Anything to avoid acknowledging that Hamas could be using Al Shifa for nefarious means.
Keep going, Jeremy. Maybe you’ll end up on Israel’s favorite satirical comedy show next week. https://t.co/jN3kZ40rPc
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 17, 2023
The Guardian Links “Modest” Evidence to War Legitimacy
The Guardian echoed BBC’s investigative analysis trying to debunk Israel’s evidence from Shifa, but it went further.
After claiming the arsenal found in the hospital was a “modest” collection of “small arms,” the paper suggested that without better evidence, Israel would lose its justification for the war:
The evidence produced so far falls well short of that. IDF videos have shown only modest collections of small arms, mostly assault rifles, recovered from the extensive medical complex.
More immediately and directly, the details of the Shifa raid have an impact on the international climate in which Israel is conducting its war. Countries such as the UK, Germany and most importantly, the US, have resisted calls for a ceasefire on the grounds that Israel’s actions constitute legitimate self-defence. Every day without convincing evidence from the raid makes that argument harder to pursue.
It seems like the butchering and kidnapping of Israelis by Hamas on October 7, as well as the constant launching of rockets against Israel since then, is not enough Israeli legitimacy for The Guardian.
The newspaper’s columnist, Owen Jones, even attempted to ridicule the video evidence of terrorists dragging hostages into Shifa. Referring to the exposed hospital’s CCTV footage from October 7, he suggested the hostages were taken there for medical treatment:
Sorry, what’s the claim here exactly?
That Al-Shifa hospital is a Hamas command and control centre because injured hostages were taken there for medical treatment?
The presence of injured hostages definitely justifies Israel’s massacre of the hospital. Case closed. https://t.co/78J0HAguNc
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) November 19, 2023
If the treatment of hostages was indeed Hamas’ priority, the terrorists could have taken them to at least five other hospitals en route before reaching Shifa:
Every possible route Hamas terrorists could have taken the hostages into Gaza would have passed through at least 5 other hospitals before reaching Shifa Hospital.
They didn’t take them there for “medical treatment”; they brought them specifically to Shifa because it’s their… pic.twitter.com/g40vAM4sdK
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) November 19, 2023
Reuters and AP’s Unreliable Talking Heads
Another way the media have tried to undermine Israel’s evidence is to rely on very specific “witnesses” or “officials.” In Reuters and AP’s case, it’s Munir al-Bursh, Director General of the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The AP quotes him as saying that “Patients, women and children are terrified” inside Shifa. Reuters says he “dismissed the Israeli statement on the tunnel under the hospital as a ‘pure lie.’”
What the two agencies fail to mention is that al-Bursh cannot be trusted because he is a part of the Hamas government and doesn’t even try to hide his support of terrorists. (See the thread below or David Collier’s investigation for more evidence.)
The AP also buried the story about the CCTV hostages footage amid a wider story about ongoing war developments. It added that it “was not able to independently confirm the military’s findings.” An earlier version of their story included the denials of Hamas official Osama Hamdan, who was quoted without such a caveat.
Journalists should stick to the basics of their profession — report the facts, attributed as necessary.
But minimizing the evidence by suggesting that what Israel has exposed is not enough or fake, while relying on the denials of a deceitful terror organization, is nothing less than a complete ethical and journalistic collapse.
The post Media Minimize Evidence of Hamas Activity in Gaza’s Shifa Hospital first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Culture Minister Cuts Funding for Film Awards After Palestinian Drama Wins Top Prize, Chosen for Oscars Submission
A scene from “The Sea.” Photo: The Israeli Academy of Film and Television
Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar said his ministry will pull state funding for Israel’s Ophir Awards, which is the Israeli equivalent to the Oscars, after it awarded a top honor to a film that “defames” Israel’s “heroic soldiers,” he announced on Wednesday.
At this year’s Ophir Awards ceremony on Tuesday night, “The Sea” won best picture, which automatically makes the film Israel’s submission for the 2026 Oscars in the category of best international feature film. The drama, directed and written by Shai Carmeli-Pollak and produced by Baher Agbariya, also won best screenplay, best actor for the 13-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Gazawi, best supporting actor for Khalifa Natour, and best original score. The movie, filmed in Arabic and Hebrew, marks Gazawi’s first acting role.
The Ophir Awards are voted on by the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, a nonprofit organization that is the Israeli version of the US-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. It has more than 1,000 members, including filmmakers, producers, content creators, and actors.
“The Sea” follows a 12-year-old Palestinian boy named Khaled, from a village near Ramallah, who gets the opportunity to go the beach for the first time in his life on a class trip to Tel Aviv. When he is forced to return home at a military checkpoint, while his classmates continue on to the beach, Khaled decides to risk his life and dodge Israeli authorities on his solo journey to reach the ocean. “The Sea” premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival this summer and received support from the Israeli Film Fund.
In a statement on X, Zohar said that after the “pro-Palestinian” film, “which defames our heroic soldiers while they fight to protect us,” won the award for best film at the “shameful” Ophir Awards on Tuesday night, he decided to discontinue funding for the ceremony.
“During my tenure – the citizens of Israel will not pay out of their pockets for a disgraceful ceremony that spits on the heroic IDF soldiers,” he added. “This great absurdity, that Israeli citizens are still paying out of their pockets for the disgraceful Ophir Awards ceremony, which represents less than one percent of the Israeli people – is over. Starting from the 2026 budget, this pathetic ceremony will no longer be funded by taxpayers’ money. The citizens of Israel deserve for their tax money to go to more important and valuable places.”
Several winners on stage at the Ophir Awards ceremony, including Carmeli-Pollak and Agbariya, sported a black T-shirt with a message that called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war and said in Hebrew and Arabic “a child is a child.” Others wore shirts that called for the return of the hostages abducted by Hamas-led terrorists from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and talked about the devastation taking place in Gaza during the ongoing war. Acclaimed Israeli director Uri Barbash received a lifetime achievement award at the ceremony, and in his acceptance speech, he condemned actions of the Israeli government and Zohar, pleaded for an end to the war, and called for solidarity between Jews and Arabs.
“It is our sacred duty to bring all the hostages back to their families immediately,” he said. “To end the accursed war and replace the ‘divide and rule’ regime that has declared war on Israeli society!”
Other movies that competed alongside “The Sea” for best film at this year’s Ophir Awards included Nadav Lapid’s “Yes,” “Dead Language – which made its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and is an expanded version of the Oscar-nominated short film “Aya” – and Natali Braun’s “Oxygen,” which is about a single mother fighting to pull her son out of military service and his deployment to Lebanon.
Israel has had 10 nominations in the category of best international feature film at the Oscars but has yet to win. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will announce on Dec. 16 a shortlist of 15 contenders for the 2026 Oscar for best international feature film. The final list of nominations will be announced on Jan. 22, 2026, and the 98th Academy Awards will take place on March 15, 2026.
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HBO Max Acquires US Rights to Scripted Series ‘One Day in October’ About Hamas Attack
Bartender and survivor of the Nova Festival, May Hayat, takes cover as rocket sirens sound, during her first visit to the scene of the attack, on the one-month anniversary of the attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, near Re’im, Israel, Nov. 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
HBO Max has acquired exclusive rights in the United States to “One Day in October,” a scripted series based on real-life, first-hand accounts from the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“One Day in October” is the first real-time scripted portrayal of personal stories from the massacre in southern Israel, where Palestinians terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages. The attack was the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“One Day in October” will debut on HBO Max in the US on Oct. 7, the two-year anniversary of the attack, FOX Entertainment announced on Monday. Filmed on location in Israel, the four-episode series is co-produced by FOX Entertainment Studios in partnership with Israel’s yes TV, the New York-based production company Sparks Go, and Israel’s ZOA Films, in association with Moriah Media.
The series “presents seven emotionally gripping and artistically interwoven narratives of love, courage, sacrifice and survival,” according to a description provided by HBO Max. “From families torn apart to moments of hope emerging in the face of unspeakable tragedy to incredible bravery against the odds, each episode reveals the human cost and resilience born out of chaos. The series portrays the victims’ and survivors’ experiences of that day and is brought to life by a distinguished cast and acclaimed creative team.”
“One Day in October” is created by Daniel Finkelman, founder of the New York-based production company Sparks Go, and Oded Davidoff, who is also the director and writer on the series. Sparks Go helped co-produce the series.
“The tragic events on Oct. 7 had a profound impact on all of us,” said Fernando Szew, president of FOX Entertainment Studios. “From the very beginning, we approached this series with the utmost care, sensitivity, and urgency to ensure that the stories were told with authenticity and respect and paying homage to the victims and the heroic survivors. Oded and the incredible cast, crew and teams at Sparks Go, ZOA, and yes TV have truly created compelling storytelling that we are proud to showcase.”
The cast includes Swell Ariel Or, Noa Kedar, Naomi Levov, Hisham Suliman, Wael Hamdoun, Yuval Semo, Avi Azulay, Naveh Tzur, Yael Abecassis, Moran Rosenblatt, Michael Aloni, Neta Roth, Sean Softi, Lior Ashkenazi, and Uri Perelman. The series features writing by Liron Ben-Shlush, Davidoff, Amir Hasfari, Keren Weissman, Orit Dabush, and Yona Rozenkier. Jim Berk and Sheldon Rabinowitz with Moriah Media are also executive producers on the series.
“For me, film and television have always been more than entertainment, they are a way to bear witness,” said Finkelman. “These are stories of ordinary people facing extraordinary moments. In a time when truth is fragile, the most powerful thing we can do is to appeal to humanity itself. My hope is that these stories will open hearts and spark meaningful conversation.”
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Merz Says Criticism of Israel in Germany Has Become Pretext for Hatred of Jews
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends celebrations of the newly completed renovation of Reichenbach Strasse synagogue in Munich, Germany, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Angelika Warmuth
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday that criticism of Israel was increasingly being used in Germany as a pretext for stoking hatred against Jews.
Speaking at an event to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Central Council of Jews, Merz said that antisemitism had “become louder, more open, more brazen, more violent almost every day” since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the Gaza war.
“‘Criticism of Israel‘ and the crudest perpetrator-victim reversal is increasingly a pretext under which the poison of antisemitism is spread,” he said.
Germany is Israel‘s second biggest weapons supplier after the US, and has long been one of its staunchest supporters, in part because of historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”
Last month, however, Germany suspended exports of weaponry that could be used in the Gaza Strip because of Israel‘s plan to expand its operations there – the first time united Germany had acknowledged denying military support to its long-time ally.
The decision followed mounting pressure from the public and his junior coalition partner over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In his speech in Berlin on Wednesday, Merz mentioned his about-turn, saying that criticism of the Israeli government “must be possible,” but added: “Our country suffers damage to its own soul when this criticism becomes a pretext for hatred of Jews, or if it even leads to the demand that Germany should turn its back on Israel.”