RSS
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.
RSS
Haaretz Claim That IDF Was Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Gazans Refuted by Translation Discrepancies, Contradictions, and Eyewitness Accounts
Gazans receiving humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Col. Richard Kemp
A recent Haaretz exposé accusing the Israeli military of ordering troops to fire at unarmed civilians near food aid sites in Gaza relied on mistranslation, selective quotes, factual omissions, and contradictions to construct a narrative of unprovoked Israeli violence, according to independent observers interviewed by The Algemeiner.
Debunking the claim of indiscriminate fire by the IDF, the experts instead described widespread fear of Hamas, not the Israeli military.
The Haaretz report quickly gained traction in international media. Titled “’It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid,” it was cited by outlets such as NPR, CNN, and Reuters, .
British military analyst Andrew Fox criticized the article for its framing and language. One of the discrepancies he pointed to was the shift in the English version of the story from soldiers firing “towards” civilians, as stated in the Hebrew original, to “at” them. The original Hebrew subheader also specified that soldiers were told to fire “towards” crowds “to distance them” from the aid sites, suggesting the shooting took place as a means of crowd control.
“It’s a matter of intent,” Fox told The Algemeiner. The phrase “‘at civilians’ means they are trying to kill them. It’s misleading because they’re firing warnings to avoid harm rather than shooting to cause harm.”
“Warning shots are something all armies do — we did in Afghanistan — but when you pull the trigger there’s always a risk of harm, and that’s not great,” explained Fox, a think tank researcher and former British Army officer. “Still, there’s a huge difference between that and deliberately targeting civilians.”
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said that “shooting towards,” as in the original Hebrew, was “quite reasonable as a means to exercise crowd control in a war zone.”
“It is highly unlikely the IDF would be ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians unless they directly endangered them,” Kemp told The Algemeiner, citing Israel’s interest in the success of US-backed humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza. “The IDF rigidly follows laws of war. It makes no sense for the IDF to want to damage aid efforts. They cooperate with and facilitate [the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] and want it to succeed. The ones who want it to fail are Hamas because it deprives them of control and funds. If anyone has been doing this shooting, it would be Hamas. They have the motive the IDF do not.”
There were other discrepancies in the original headline and its translation. Whereas the Hebrew version reads “Soldiers testify: IDF deliberately shoots towards Gazans near aid collection points,” the English version not only omitted any reference to mediating testimony or attribution, but also framed the event as an empirical fact: “IDF soldiers ordered to shoot deliberately at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid.” Further, the phrase “waiting for humanitarian aid” may carry specific legal implications under international law, suggesting heightened vulnerability, whereas the Hebrew version referred more vaguely to crowds “near aid collection points.”
The subheader — which claimed soldiers were ordered to fire at unarmed civilians “even when no threat was present” — conflicted with the body of the text, which acknowledged that Israeli soldiers were wounded near the aid distribution zones. One sentence, appearing for the first time in the 21st paragraph, stood out: “There were also fatalities and injuries among IDF soldiers in these incidents.” The piece offered no explanation for how such casualties could occur if, as the article claims, no one else present was armed.
Elsewhere in the article, a soldier is quoted describing the IDF creating a “killing field,” supposedly involving heavy machine guns, mortars, and grenade launchers. But if such weapons were used with lethal intent, as Fox pointed out in a Substack post, the casualty rate would be far higher than the one to five reported per day. “That’s not a massacre,” he wrote, going on to quip that the only massacre to take place was one of “journalistic standards by Haaretz.”
“Could some soldiers accidentally miss and hit someone?” Fox wrote. “Yes. That is tragic and warrants investigation. However, the article itself acknowledges that the IDF is already examining those incidents. To jump from that to ‘deliberate killing fields’ is not responsible reporting. It is narrative laundering.”
The lack of video footage of the alleged mass shootings near GHF sites raises questions, given the large volume of media typically produced from Gaza, according to Fox, who noted that Hamas has repeatedly circulated images and clips for propaganda purposes.
“Every Gazan has a mobile phone, and numerous videos of other events have been released,” he wrote. “Why is there a total absence of any credible footage of these supposed IDF combined arms assaults on queuing civilians?”
Kemp, who visited two of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution sites in the days following the report’s publication, described hearing distant gunfire but reported that the aid operation proceeded mostly without disruption.
Col. Richard Kemp at humanitarian aid site with Gazans. Photo: Provided
“None of the Gazans there showed any concerns [about the IDF] whatsoever,” he said. Many of the civilians identified Hamas, not the IDF, as the main threat to the aid effort — a dynamic not acknowledged in the Haaretz report — telling Kemp they could not return home for fear of being recognized and targeted by Hamas.
“I must have spoken to at least 50 Gazans at each site,” he said. “Many told me they feared Hamas and Hamas threatened them if they used the sites.”
Kemp added that the atmosphere was chaotic but manageable, with GHF workers — most of them local Gazans — interfacing directly with the crowds. He described people smiling, holding up food packages, and expressing gratitude for the aid.
“The overwhelming impression was how grateful they were to be getting free aid for once, as opposed to buying aid looted by Hamas and sold at a premium,” he told The Algemeiner.
Many Gazans at the GHF sites who spoke to Kemp voiced hatred for Hamas and praised the US-backed aid effort, with some chanting “kill Hamas” while others said “I love America” or expressed admiration for President Donald Trump. The alignment between Hamas and UN criticism of the food program was “shocking,” Kemp added, particularly given the visible gratitude expressed by many recipients.
“They associate this aid program with the US,” he said. “They seem to like it, whereas Hamas and the UN seem to be its greatest enemies.”
The post Haaretz Claim That IDF Was Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Gazans Refuted by Translation Discrepancies, Contradictions, and Eyewitness Accounts first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Former Australian Nurses Charged Over Threatening Viral Video Banned from NDIS
Illustrative: Supporters of Hamas gather for a rally in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Reuters/Joel Carrett
Two former Australian nurses who were charged over a viral video in which they allegedly threatened to kill Israeli patients have been banned from working under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), four months after being suspended from their jobs at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, both 27, gained international attention after they were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night shift conversation with Israeli influencer Max Veifer.
The widely circulated footage, which sparked international outrage and condemnation, showed Abu Lebdeh declaring she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them, while Nadir made a throat-slitting gesture and claimed he had already killed many.
Following the incident, New South Wales authorities suspended their nursing registrations and banned them from working as nurses nationwide. They are now also prohibited from working with or providing any services — paid or unpaid — to NDIS participants for two years.
This latest ban, which took effect on May 9, applies nationwide and prohibits Nadir and Abu Lebdeh from working with NDIS participants or performing any role for or on behalf of NDIS providers in any Australian state or territory.
Abu Lebdeh was charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass. If convicted, she faces up to 22 years in prison.
Nadir was charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug.
Currently, both of them remain free on bail and have not yet entered any pleas, with a court appearance scheduled for July 29. They’ve been prohibited from leaving Australia or using social media while their cases proceed.
According to Nadir’s lawyer, the video was captured “without the consent and knowledge” of his client, and he intends to argue for its exclusion from court.
“We will be challenging the admissibility of the video recording because it was a private conversation which was recorded by the person overseas without my client’s consent and without his knowledge,” Nadir’s lawyer said. “That video recording was made secretly overseas and was unlawfully obtained.”
This incident, which drew international attention, occurred amid a surge of antisemitic acts across Australia since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October 2023, with Jewish institutions targeted in arson attacks and businesses defaced.
Antisemitism spiked to record levels in Australia — especially in Sydney and Melbourne, which are home to some 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population — following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, with the escalation continuing amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
According to a report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the country’s Jewish community experienced over 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, more than quadrupling from 495 in the prior 12 months.
The number of antisemitic physical assaults in Australia rose from 11 in 2023 to 65 in 2024. The level of antisemitism for the past year was six times the average of the preceding 10 years.
The post Former Australian Nurses Charged Over Threatening Viral Video Banned from NDIS first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A victim of the antisemitic Boulder, Colorado firebombing died on Monday, prompting local law enforcement to charge suspect Mohamed Soliman with murder in the first degree.
“Severe injuries” caused the death of Karen Diamond, 82, the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office (BCDA) said on Monday in a statement. She was one of 13 people injured when Soliman hurled Molotov cocktails into a crowd of Jewish people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. Her death adds five new charges to the over 200 federal and state criminal charges which could lock Soliman away for over 600 years.
“These additional charges, including the counts of First Degree Murder, are being filed after consultation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Boulder Police Department,” said the DA’s office, adding that it “continues to work closely with federal, state, and local partners in the strong response to this attack. We stand united against acts of antisemitism and hate.”
“This horrific attack has now claimed the life of an innocent person who was beloved by her family and friends,” said Michal Dougherty, district attorney of Boulder County. “Our hearts are with the Diamond family during this incredibly difficult time. Our office will fight for justice for the victims, their loved ones, and the community. Part of what makes Colorado special is that people come together in response to a tragedy; I know that the community will continue to unite in supporting the Diamond family and all the victims of this attack.”
Prosecutors said in May that Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack, and, according to court documents, told investigators that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”
That incident came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, also yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
In Garret Park, Maryland, a middle-aged man, Clift A. Seferlis, was recently arrested by federal authorities for sending a series of threatening messages to Jewish organizations in Philadelphia. Seferlis referenced the war in Gaza in his communications.
“The Victim Jewish Institution 1 received numerous additional messages since April 1, 2024, which contained a threat to physically destroy the institution,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a statement. “Prior to the receipt of the May 7, 2025, mailing, Victim Jewish Institution 1 and its employees had received very similar-looking letters, believed to have been sent by Seferlis, which referenced Victim Jewish Institution 1’s ‘many big open windows,’ ‘Kristallnacht,’ ‘anger and rage,’ and a future need to ‘rebuild’ the institution following its destruction.”
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where Juan Diaz-Rivas, Alejandro Flores-Lamas, and others law enforcement is working to identify, allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and Flores-Lamas, along with their associates, approached the victim while shouting “F—ck the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to the office of the San Francis district attorney.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to data released by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) latest Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in April, antisemitism in the US is surging to break “all previous annual records.”
In 2024 alone, the ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, an eruption of hatred not recorded in the nearly thirty years since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“In 2024, hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence, said when the report was released. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim first appeared on Algemeiner.com.