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The War in Gaza Continues: Food, Lies, and Video Tapes
November 2023: An Israeli soldier helps to provide incubators to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza. Photo: Screenshot
While the world is mostly focused on Iran, it’s important to remember the war in Gaza continues. On Sunday, Israeli security forces recovered the bodies of three more hostages — 71-year-old Ofra Keidar, 21-year-old Yonatan Samerano, and 19-year-old Staff Sergeant Shay Levinson. They had been murdered and their bodies held hostage since October 7, 2023 — the day Hamas, Iran’s proxy, launched its war on Israel.
For 625 days, their remains were held as trophies to be traded in a grotesque negotiation tactic. Many struggle to grasp the depravity of using corpses as bargaining chips. But this failure to understand the nature of Israel’s enemies has led to Israel being vilified, even as it defends itself against those sworn to its destruction.
The global narrative shifted with shocking speed away from the atrocities of October 7, 2023, to a focus on what Israel would do in response to the darkest day in its history.
The massacre of 1,200 people and abduction of over 250 became a footnote, while the suffering of Gazan civilians — a significant number of whom either took part in or celebrated the massacre — became the world’s main concern.
Israel found itself fighting not just a regional war on seven fronts, but also an information war in which not a single bullet was fired, yet the potential damage was even greater.
From the outset, as always with wars involving Israel, the first casualty was truth.
On October 17, 2023, headlines screamed of an Israeli airstrike on Gaza’s al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, supposedly killing more than 500 people. The claim came from Hamas’ health ministry, within minutes of the explosion at the site.
This Hamas-produced story was instantly broadcast by media giants like The New York Times and the BBC.
But no one asked how 500 deaths could possibly be confirmed that quickly amidst the chaos of war. It later emerged that the explosion was caused by a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that hit the hospital carpark, killing dozens, not hundreds. The media outlets issued corrections, but the lie had already circled the globe.
Nevertheless, that single incident set the tone for what would follow: a readiness to accept at face value the claims of a terror group that just days earlier raped, mutilated, and burned Israeli families alive.
On November 15, 2023, a BBC anchor falsely claimed that Israel was targeting medical teams and Arabic speakers in Gaza. The BBC later apologized — but once again, the damage was done.
In March 2024, Al Jazeera aired a video in which a woman accused the IDF of raping and murdering women at Shifa Hospital. She later admitted she had lied. The video was quietly deleted — but only after the lie went global.
In May of this year, Tom Fletcher, the UN’s chief aid officer, claimed 14,000 babies would be dead within 48 hours without aid. He later admitted it was false, saying that he should have been more “precise” with his language. He later claimed 10,000 aid trucks were waiting to be allowed into Gaza — another lie in which he was not “precise” with his language. Perhaps choosing truth over deception might help him to be more “precise.”
These weren’t innocent mistakes. They were reckless or deliberate lies designed to shape the narrative. Israel stands falsely accused of genocide, of deliberately targeting civilians, of starving Gaza — despite facilitating more than 1.7 million tons of aid since the war began.
Some media commentators have now berated Israel for not providing the exact civilian casualty count, as if any army could do so in an active warzone where terrorists deliberately hide behind civilians, in homes, schools, and hospitals. The British and American armies certainly couldn’t when they operated in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Recently, as the new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating — bypassing Hamas and corrupt UN aid channels — Israel was accused of firing on hungry Gazans. In fact, video showed Hamas operatives shooting at civilians trying to reach food, resulting in clashes with rival local Palestinian gunmen. A recently released IDF recorded conversation with a Gazan civilian verifies this.
These are just some examples of many, but the problem is when false stories spread — be it fabricated massacres, manipulated death tolls, or bogus claims of Israel targeting civilians — they embed themselves in public consciousness. Retractions, if they come at all, are too little, too late. The lie has already done its job. The truth becomes irrelevant.
No one denies that Israel, like any country, can and does make mistakes during war, as do some soldiers. Yet to refuse to preference the integrity of a democracy fighting for its existence over the savagery and deceptions of a genocidal death cult fighting to destroy that democracy is both foolish and shameful.
Fake news is not a joke — it has real consequences, and as we have seen in Washington D.C., and in Boulder, Colorado, people are dying because of it.
Ofra, Yonatan and Shay, after a period of unbearable pain for their families, will finally be buried in Israel. But what we cannot bury is truth. Because without it, this war — and its lies — will never end.
Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).
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‘Fine Scholar’: UC Berkeley Chancellor Praises Professor Who Expressed Solidarity With Oct. 7 Attacks
University of California, Berkeley chancellor Dr. Rich Lyons, testifies at a Congressional hearing on antisemitism, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on July 15, 2025. Photo: Allison Bailey via Reuters Connect.
The chancellor of University of California, Berkeley described a professor who cheered the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre across southern Israel a “fine scholar” during a congressional hearing held at Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
Richard K. Lyons, who assumed the chancellorship in July 2024 issued the unmitigated praise while being questioned by members of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce, which summoned him and the chief administrators of two other major universities to interrogate their handling of the campus antisemitism crisis.
Lyons stumbled into the statement while being questioned by Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI), who asked Lyons to describe the extent of his relationship and correspondence with Professor Ussama Makdisi, who tweeted in Feb. 2024 that he “could have been one of those who broke through the siege on October 7.”
“What do you think the professor meant,” McClain asked Lyons, to which the chancellor responded, “I believe it was a celebration of the terrorist attack on October 7.” McClain proceeded to ask if Lyons discussed the tweet with Makdisi or personally reprimanded him, prompting an exchange of remarks which concluded with Lyons’s saying, “He is a fine scholar.”
Lyon’s comment came after nearly three hours in which the group of university leaders — which included Dr. Robert Groves, president of Georgetown University, and Dr. Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY) — offered gaffe-free, deliberately worded answers to the members’ questions to avoid eliciting the kind of public relations ordeal which prematurely ended the tenures of two Ivy League presidents in 2024 following an education committee held in Dec. 2023.
Rep. McClain later criticized Lyons on social media, calling his comment “totally disgraceful.” She added, “Faculty must be held accountable and Jewish students deserve better.”
CUNY chancellor Rodriguez also triggered a rebuke from the committee members in which he was also described as a “disgrace.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUNY campuses have been lambasted by critics as some of the most antisemitic institutions of higher education in the United States. Last year, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) resolved half a dozen investigations of antisemitism on CUNY campuses, one of which involved Jewish students who were pressured into saying that Jews are White people who should be excluded from discussions about social justice.
During Tuesday’s hearing Rodriguez acknowledged that antisemitic incidents continue to disrupt Jewish academic life, disclosing that 84 complaints of antisemitism have been formally reported to CUNY administrators since 2024. 15 were filed in 2025 alone, but CUNY, he said, has published only 18 students for antisemitic conduct. Rodriguez went on to denounce efforts to pressure CUNY into adopting the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, saying, “I have repudiated BDS and I have said there’s no place for BDS at the City University of New York.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) remarked, however, that Rodriguez has allegedly done little to address antisemitism in the CUNY faculty union, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which has passed several resolutions endorsing BDS and whose members, according to 2021 ruling rendered by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), discriminated against Professor Jeffrey Lax by holding meetings on Shabbat to prevent him and other Jews from attending them.
“The PSC does not speak for the City University of New York,” Rodriquez protested. “We’ve been clear on our commitment against antisemitism and against BDS.”
Later, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), whose grilling of higher education officials who appear before the committee has created several viral moments, rejected Rodriguez’s responses as disingenuous.
“It’s all words, no action. You have failed the people of New York,” she told the chancellor. “You have failed Jewish students in New York State, and it is a disgrace.”
Following the hearing, The Lawfare Project, legal nonprofit which provides legal services free of charge to Jewish victims of civil rights violations, applauded the education committee for publicizing antisemitism at CUNY.
“I am thankful for the many members of Congress who worked with us to ensure that the deeply disturbing facts about antisemitism at CUNY were brought forward in this hearing,” Lawfare Project litigation director Zipora Reich said in a press release. “While it is deeply frustrating to hear more platitudes and vague promises from CUNY’s leadership, we are encouraged to see federal lawmakers demanding accountability.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Huckabee Calls for Israeli Investigation Into ‘Criminal and Terrorist’ Killing of Palestinian-American in West Bank
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee looks on during the day he visits the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee on Monday urged Israeli officials to swiftly investigate the killing of Saif Musallet, a 20-year-old American citizen who was allegedly beaten to death by Israeli settlers while he was visiting family in the West Bank town of Sinjil.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,” Huckabee wrote on social media, in what is one of his strongest condemnations of Israeli settler violence since he was appointed by President Donald Trump in November 2024. “Saif was just 20 yrs old.”
Musallet, a Florida native, was reportedly attacked on July 11 by a group of Israelis while accompanying relatives on family-owned farmland near Ramallah. His family says he was severely beaten and denied medical attention for nearly three hours before succumbing to his injuries. Another Palestinian man, 23-year-old Mohammad al-Shalabi, was shot and killed during the same incident, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Israeli authorities said the violence followed an alleged rock-throwing incident that left two Israelis lightly wounded, a common occurrence in the West Bank which las left scores of Israelis civilians wounded and some killed. The Israel Defense Forces stated they used non-lethal crowd dispersal methods during the clash. The IDF says the incident is under investigation. Two Israeli minors were arrested following the attack, though according to Israeli media reports, neither of them is a murder suspect, and they were subsequently released to house arrest.
Musallet had traveled to the West Bank in early June to visit relatives and potentially meet a bride. Raised in Port Charlotte, Florida, he had recently co-founded an ice cream business in Tampa with his family. His death comes amid an escalation in settler-related violence across the West Bank, which has intensified since the October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel and the Israeli military’s ongoing campaign in Gaza.
Huckabee has historically defended Israeli settlement activity and has vowed to serve as an unwavering defender of the Jewish state.
Human rights groups and local activists say Musallet’s killing is part of a growing pattern of impunity for attacks on Palestinians, including American citizens. No Israeli suspects have been indicted in several high-profile deaths of Palestinian Americans in recent years, including journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and teenager Omar Mohammad Rabea.
U.S. lawmakers, including Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL), who represents Tampa, joined calls for an investigation. The State Department said it is aware of the incident and is providing consular support to the family but deferred further comment to Israeli authorities.
Musallet’s funeral was held Sunday in his family’s hometown of al-Mazra’a ash-Sharqiya. His relatives say they are demanding justice not only for Saif, but for all Americans caught in what they describe as an increasingly lawless situation in the occupied West Bank.
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Scandal-Plagued UN Commission Disbands Amid Increasing US Pressure Against Anti-Israel International Organizations
Miloon Kothari, member of the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, briefs reporters on the first report of the Commission. UN Photo/Jean Marc Ferré
The Commission of Inquiry (COI), a controversial United Nations commission investigating Israel for nearly five years, has collapsed after all three of its members abruptly resigned days after the United States sanctioned a senior UN official over antisemitism.
Commission chair Navi Pillay resigned on July 8, citing health concerns and scheduling conflicts. Her fellow commissioners, Chris Sidoti and Miloon Kothari, followed suit days later. While none of the commissioners directly linked their resignations to the U.S. sanctions, the timing suggests mounting American pressure played a decisive role.
The resignations came just one day before the Trump administration announced sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories. Albanese was sanctioned over what the State Department called a “pattern of antisemitic and inflammatory rhetoric.” She had previously claimed that the U.S. was controlled by a “Jewish lobby” and questioned Israel’s right to self-defense. The sanctions bar her from entering the U.S. and freeze any assets under American jurisdiction.
The resignations mark a major victory for critics who have long viewed the inquiry as biased and politically motivated.
Watchdog groups, including Geneva-based UN Watch, celebrated the swift collapse of the Commission of Inquiry (COI), which they say had long operated with an open mandate to target Israel. “This is a watershed moment of accountability,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. “The COI was built on bias and sustained by hatred. Its fall is a victory for human rights, not a defeat.”
The COI had faced heavy criticism since its formation in 2021. In July 2022, Commissioner Miloon Kothari, made comments about the undue influence of a so-called “Jewish lobby” on the media, said the COI would “have to look at issues of settler colonialism.”
“Apartheid itself is a very useful paradigm, so we have a slightly different approach, but we will definitely get to it,” he added.
The Commission was established in 2021 year following the 11-day war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas group in May. COI is the first UN commission to ever be granted an indefinite period of investigation, which has drawn criticism from the US State Department, members of US Congress, and Jewish leaders across the world.
Following the resignations, Council President Jürg Lauber invited member states to nominate replacements by August 31. However, it is unclear whether the commission will be reconstituted or quietly shelved. UN Watch and other groups have urged the council to disband the COI entirely, calling it irreparably biased.
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