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The Associated Press Treats Hamas’ Highly Questionable Casualty Figures as Fact

Troops from the IDF’s 98th Division operating in Jabalia, the northern Gaza Strip, May 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces.
One day after the publication of yet another detailed study identifying serious flaws and anomalies in Hamas-supplied figures for fatalities incurred in Israel’s Gaza Strip offensive, the Associated Press (AP) ran a headline and article that cited the terror organization’s disputed and highly questionable figures as fact without even providing attribution.
The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists urges: “Identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources.”
But the AP did the exact opposite, publishing a headline that concealed the source of an unreliable casualty figure supplied by a designated terror organization and falsely presented the contested number as confirmed fact: “Israel will close its Ireland embassy as Palestinian death toll nears 45,000.”
In the seventh paragraph of their Dec. 15, 2024, article, reporters Wafaa Shurafa and Natalie Melzer likewise cast unverified Hamas data as actual truth: “Israeli forces continued Sunday to pound Gaza, including the largely isolated north, as the Palestinian death toll in the war approached 45,000.”
Only some one dozen paragraphs later does the article provide attribution:
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed almost 45,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. The ministry’s count does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but it says over half of the dead have been women and children.
But most readers won’t get that far. They’ve already been fed the figure in the headline as if it’s a verified fact, as opposed to an unsubstantiated number supplied by a terror organization.
Not only is Hamas’ casualty data unverified; it’s also highly disputed and rife with anomalies.
The latest in a string of studies to identify multiple flaws and discrepancies in Hamas’ data is Andrew Fox’s Henry Jackson Society in-depth study, published on Dec. 14. These anomalies include listing people who died from natural causes as war victims, counting those killed by errant Palestinian rockets or Hamas gunmen as victims of Israeli airstrikes, inflating the number of children killed by misreporting ages, miscategorizing men as women with the same result, and so on (“Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll From the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza“).
Furthermore, while Shurafa and Melzer treated Hamas’ figure as credible, and even factual, they completely ignored Israeli-supplied information on fatalities in the Gaza Strip.
Notably, the AP does at times cite, including in a separate Dec. 16 article, the Israeli military’s information that fatalities include more than 17,000 Hamas combatants.
But this information is always cited with a caveat qualifying Israeli credibility: “The Israeli military says it has killed more than 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.” (Emphasis added.)
It’s striking that the AP does not likewise call Hamas’ credibility into question, despite the numerous well documented and serious anomalies in Hamas’ figures and the fact that thousands among the reported 45,000 are unidentified, even according to Hamas’ acknowledgment.
“More than half the world’s population sees AP journalism every day,” the leading wire service maintains. While boasting it has “done more than any organization in the world to expand the reach of factual reporting,” the AP excels at expanding the reach of Hamas propaganda dressed up as factual reporting.
Tamar Sternthal is the director of CAMERA’s Israel Office. A version of this article previously appeared on the CAMERA website.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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