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The Washington Post Has Abandoned ‘Truth’ and ‘Fairness’ in Its Israel Coverage
Despite The Washington Post espousing principles of “truth” and “fairness,” its expansive coverage of the Israel-Hamas war since October 7 has been marred by its bias against Israel’s defensive actions and conduct in the region.
Over the past four months, HonestReporting has tracked this biased coverage, focusing on three particularly concerning areas:
The narrative produced by The Washington Post’s general reporting;
The opinions expressed in its editorials;
Its disconcerting reliance on the testimony of controversial sources.
“Civilians,” “Fighters” & “Captives”: The Washington Post’s Skewed Reporting
Through its use of certain terminology, skewed facts, and context-free assertions, The Washington Post’s general reporting on the war helps to create a narrative that implicitly portrays Israel as the aggressor while simultaneously downplaying the ruthlessness of Hamas and its regional allies, including Hezbollah.
One of its most influential pieces produced since October 7 has been the investigation into the IDF’s claims regarding Hamas’ use of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.
In order to undermine the evidence presented by Israel to the public (which is not the full extent of its relevant intelligence), the Post made a variety of speculations and context-less assertions to lay doubts in its readers’ minds as to the veracity of Israel’s case.
The Post used this amateurish “muddying the waters” tactic to subvert the IDF’s justified entrance into the hospital complex, portraying Israel as the aggressor while relinquishing Hamas of any responsibility for using civilian infrastructure for terrorist purposes.
Washington Post Muddies the Waters of Israel’s Shifa Hospital Operation
“This reporting is neither groundbreaking nor conclusive. It’s simply a lazy attempt to vilify Israel and absolve Hamas.”
By @SimonPlosker of @HonestReporting https://t.co/RGIWnfGv7a
— Algemeiner (@Algemeiner) December 25, 2023
In another investigative report, the Post sought to cast a dark pall over the IDF’s actions in Gaza by claiming that the number of children killed in this conflict might be unprecedented in the annals of 21st-century warfare.
However, the Post was only able to reach these conclusions by skewing the statistics against Israel: It relied on selective data that didn’t provide a complete picture of the damage wrought by these other conflicts and also relied on verified statistics for the other conflicts while relying on Hamas’ unverified number for the Gazan casualties.
While both the Al-Shifa hospital report and the comparison of Gaza with other conflict zones were blatant hit pieces directed against the IDF’s activities in Gaza, there are more subtle ways in which the Post’s bias has skewed the narrative.
For example, while the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count of the daily dead during the war, it would be irrational to assume that all killed by the IDF were civilians. However, this didn’t stop the Post from referring on numerous occasions to all of Gaza’s dead as “civilians.”
Does @IgnatiusPost really believe that every single Palestinian killed in Gaza is a civilian or is it now @washingtonpost policy to simply regurgitate Hamas talking points? https://t.co/GXJIt81LTE pic.twitter.com/0bthk8UYO2
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 20, 2023
Similarly, in reporting on the November 2023 exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, the Post described it as an exchange of “captives” — implicitly equating civilians kidnapped by a terror organization to those imprisoned by a democratic country.
In addition, one of the reports on the exchange deal referred to Palestinian prisoners as “civilians,” sanitizing those who are members of internationally recognized terror organizations and/or in prison for violent activities.
Following the November exchange, the newspaper even uncritically quoted a Hamas official saying that all women and child hostages had been released, even though that was patently untrue.
This is not the only instance in which the Post has parroted Hamas’ claims to its audience.
Days after the October 7 massacre, the news outlet published an explainer on what Hamas is and why it had invaded southern Israel. This included detailing Hamas’ reasoning for its attack without any editorial rebuttal, implicitly justifying the terror group’s twisted logic.
Similarly, following the IDF’s entrance into Al-Shifa Hospital, the Post uncritically tweeted Hamas’ claim that this constituted “war crimes and crimes against humanity” to its 20 million followers.
Is this a @washingtonpost or a Hamas tweet?
Hard to tell. https://t.co/LpezGoDiPG
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 18, 2023
The Washington Post has sought to create a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas by comparing Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire directed against Israeli civilian centers to Israel’s strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza.
Similarly, clashes on the northern front between the IDF and Hezbollah have been described as “tit for tat” fighting, where Israel attacks Lebanon and then Hezbollah attacks Israel even though it is actually the opposite: Hezbollah initiated hostilities on that front and Israel is forced to respond to the terror organization’s attacks against northern Israel.
The Post’s bias is not limited to reporting on the present; it can also be observed in the newspaper’s revisionist view of Israeli history.
For example, in one article, the outlet claimed that during the creation of Israel, “750,000 Palestinians were expelled.”
This is a gross mischaracterization of history (which serves to perpetuate the myth of Palestinians being the victims of Israeli aggression), as most of the Palestinian population that was displaced during that time voluntarily fled to escape the fighting.
Similarly, describing the 1967 Six-Day War, the Post claimed that Israel “launched” the “war against Syria, Jordan and Egypt,” ignoring the fact that in the month prior to the outbreak of the war, Syria and Egypt had engaged in acts of war against the Jewish state and Israel only fought Jordan after the latter attacked Israeli positions after the war had started.
.@washingtonpost‘s history section isn’t so hot on actual history.
Israel didn’t simply “launch” the 1967 war. It responded to Arab threats to annihilate it & other belligerent actions with a pre-emptive strike.
Israel warned Jordan to stay out of the fighting. Jordan… pic.twitter.com/opqRooviOE
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 16, 2024
The Washington Post has also published an array of anti-Israel opinion pieces, both those written by its staff and those contributed by guest writers.
In the month following the October 7 attack, columnist Karen Attiah published several opinion pieces that sought to tarnish Israel’s reputation and its fight against Hamas through misleading statements, a skewed analysis, and unfounded opinions.
Some of the most egregious examples of Attiah’s disdain for the Jewish state and whitewashing of Hamas include the claim that Israel is committing “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians, the implicit comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany, the complete disregard for the rise in global antisemitism since October 7, and the undermining of the term “human shields” in regards to Hamas’ cynical use of Gazan civilians for its nefarious purposes.
The Nazis trapped millions of Jews & transported them to their deaths.
Israel is helping Palestinians escape while rooting out Hamas evil that’s ACTUALLY perpetrating atrocities based on identity.
How dare @washingtonpost allow @KarenAttiah‘s antisemitism to infect its pages. https://t.co/biLeEPboRT pic.twitter.com/IBZ7F3kJ1d
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 14, 2023
Ishaan Tharoor has used his column to promote the false idea that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and to present a one-sided view of Israeli administrative detention.
Like Karen Attiah, Tharoor relies on biased sources, skewed analyses, and misleading statements to denigrate the Jewish state in the eyes of The Post’s readership.
But it’s not only seasoned columnists like Ishaan Tharoor and Karen Attiah who have been given a platform to spread their anti-Israel views.
In December 2023, Perry Bacon Jr. (who rarely comments on Israel) penned an op-ed accusing Israel of “indiscriminately bombing” Gaza while simultaneously downplaying the role of Hamas, its misappropriation of civilian infrastructure, and its October 7 atrocities to make them seem almost irrelevant.
Similarly, in a guest op-ed by Benjamin Moser, Israel is blamed entirely for the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with nary a mention of the numerous Palestinian terror attacks, rejections of peace offers, and continued incitement against the Jewish state.
While opinion pieces may not reflect a newspaper’s official viewpoint, the fact that the pieces mentioned above were deemed acceptable for publication speaks volumes about how the Post’s editorial board views the conflict.
Why do @benjaminfmoser & @washingtonpost hold only Israeli government policies responsible for the lack of a Palestinian state?
Palestinians also have agency & responsibility for:
The Second Intifada
Terrorism against Israeli civilians
Rejecting multiple peace offers… pic.twitter.com/4TaV6w9O4z
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 3, 2024
On January 8, 2024, HonestReporting published an investigation into two Gaza-based freelance journalists who had supported the October 7 invasion of Israel.
One of these freelancers, Ashraf Amra, hosted an Instagram Live where he encouraged Gazans to cross into Israel and gleefully watched footage of the lynching of an Israeli soldier. It was also revealed that Amra has at least twice had friendly interactions with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Mere hours after HonestReporting published its investigation, Ashra Amra was quoted by name in a Washington Post report.
The same day we exposed Gaza freelancer Ashraf Amra enjoying footage of an IDF soldier being lynched on Oct. 7 as well as his relationship with Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh, @washingtonpost quoted Amra.
Amra should never be cited again. In any media outlet. https://t.co/GfLlUuXcUb
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 9, 2024
This is not the only time that the Post has relied on the testimony or evidence of a controversial Gaza-based figure.
In late October 2024, the Post’s Instagram page shared a video of Israel’s military activities taken by Palestinian journalist Hind Khoudary.
It was revealed in 2020 that Khoudary had reported to Hamas a group of Palestinian youth who had engaged in a Zoom dialogue with Israelis.
Members of this group were later arrested by Hamas for “normalization.”
In January 2024, the Post advertised a talk about life in Gaza during the war to be given by Plestia Alaqad, an “aspiring journalist.”
However, Alaqad has been known to spread Hamas propaganda and anti-Israel libels, including claims of genocide and the assertion that Israel had committed a “massacre” at the Al-Ahli Hospital (the explosion outside the hospital was actually determined to have been caused by an errant Palestinian rocket).
While it should be noted that The Washington Post has also featured some opinion pieces and reports that are favorable to Israel, this does nothing to “balance” what remains the clear evidence of bias against Israel in its pages.
This should concern anyone who looks to The Washington Post for an objective and fair take on the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post The Washington Post Has Abandoned ‘Truth’ and ‘Fairness’ in Its Israel Coverage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials

FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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