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When Journalists Spread Social Media Disinformation to Attack Israel
Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, March 5, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Al-Basos
News consumers were told about inflammatory leaflets that Israel dropped on Gaza last Wednesday night.
According to reports by ABC and the The Telegraph, the leaflets stated that “The world map will not change if all the people of Gaza vanish.” An online post by a Washington Post columnist charged that the flyer constitutes “genocidal intent.”
Their evidence? Social media said so.
It might not be a surprise, then, that the two news outlets later walk backed their claims, while the Post columnist, Shadi Hamid, quietly deleted his post on X.com.
The ABC article now opens with an editors’ note: “An earlier version of this article said that the IDF had dropped leaflets with disturbing messaging. ABC News has not been able to confirm the authenticity of these leaflets. The IDF denies dropping these leaflets.”
CORRECTION: Earlier report of leaflets with disturbing message in Gaza cannot be confirmed; the IDF has denied dropping them.https://t.co/w6noxC1Amn
— ABC News (@ABC) March 20, 2025
The Telegraph, too, deleted its claim. Its piece now states, “It was reported earlier that Israel had dropped leaflets on Gaza,” and that “The IDF has denied this.”
Not only did Israeli officials deny the authenticity of the leaflet, but the photo shared by so many social media users, of a leaflet purportedly dropped over the last week in Gaza, was the exact same photo posted a month ago. And already then, Israel had denied responsibility for the leaflet.
The media retractions didn’t come in time to stop the spread. Haaretz, for example, extensively quoted from ABC’s own extensive quotes of the flyer. (It later added a paragraph reporting on the ABC editor’s note, but it didn’t change its text and didn’t acknowledge that ABC had actually withdrawn its claim.)
Meanwhile, the claim was echoed in the British Parliament. During a March 20 debate at the House of Commons, Conservative Party politician Kit Malthouse told his peers: “Of course it’s been reported that leaflets were dropped across Gaza last night threatening extermination.” And yet another echo, as the media then reported on Malthouse’s charges.
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Israel did drop a different leaflet over Gaza –the standard variety calling on Palestinians in a combat zones to evacuate for their own safety. Ironically, even as Israel was attacked as dropping a leaflet it didn’t drop, Al Jazeera accused the country of failing to drop the leaflets that it did, in fact, drop.
Echoes of Amsterdam
This is hardly the first time the media rushed to accept and amplify anti-Israel disinformation from social media.
As Jews and Israelis were being attacked in Amsterdam last November, an anonymous X.com user posted video purportedly showing “an Amsterdam taxi driver attacked and abused” by Israelis.
His allegation was echoed not only by a collection of anti-Israel social media users (including a Guardian columnist) — but also by the Dutch media network RTL News. From RTL, it spread to USA Today, Reuters, Yahoo News, the Jewish Chronicle, and others.
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The viral clip was scrubbed of its audio. As it had to be — in the unedited footage, the attackers are heard shouting “Palestine!” while the victims, after picking themselves up from the ground, speak to each other in Hebrew. In other words, this wasn’t an attack by Israelis on taxi drivers but the opposite: An assault against Israelis by taxi drivers.
Instead of filtering out social media’s disinformation about anti-Jewish violence, journalists worked to spread it. (To be fair, it was also journalists who exposed RTL’s falsehood.)
Other bad actors on social media posted a mistranslated clip that they falsely claimed showed Israelis in Amsterdam singing gleefully about child casualties in Gaza. As with the mischaracterized clip of the assault, the purpose was to justify the Amsterdam “Jew hunt.” And here, too, news outlets that have elsewhere warned about social media disinformation acted to uncritically spread it. The New York Times, the Guardian, and others told their readers about the non-existent video. Only after CAMERA challenged them to produce evidence did they admit they had seen no such footage.
Social media will inevitably be used as an accelerant for misinformation. Responsible journalism would help stop the spread — if only that were inevitable.
Gilead Ini is a Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA, the foremost media watchdog organization focused on coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The post When Journalists Spread Social Media Disinformation to Attack Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.