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When UPI and the Hamas Press Office Are Indistinguishable
Hamas leader and Oct. 7 pogrom mastermind Yahya Sinwar addressing a rally in Gaza. Photo: Reuters/braheem Abu Mustafa
It’s not often that a mainstream media outlet publishes a piece so full of disinformation that it ridicules itself as a credible news source.
But that’s exactly what UPI did in a piece whose blatant anti-Israeli, pro-terror stance puts the American news agency on a par with the worst propaganda platforms distributing fake news against the Jewish state.
What should have been a short reportage on comments made by Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar, has been turned by UPI’s Adam Schrader into a glorifying bio of the Gaza terrorist.
It starts with the terminology.
According to UPI, Sinwar — a mass murderer and the mastermind behind the October 7 massacre in southern Israel — is a “Palestinian militia” leader who had been arrested in Israel “for supporting a free Palestine.”
We’ve seen a lot of poor journalism but this from @UPI‘s Adam Schrader is truly an embarrassment.
Let’s start with how Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was previously arrested for merely “supporting a free Palestine” rather than actual terror activities.
And there’s more. https://t.co/gKPTFOsr7i pic.twitter.com/xXpDxAzav8
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 19, 2024
While he may support a Palestine free of Jews, Sinwar is most definitely not a militia leader. Hamas is a proscribed terror organization that has ruled all aspects of life in Gaza for almost two decades.
It may be a militia only in Schrader’s romantic imagination, perhaps, picturing Sinwar as some rebel leader in Latin America.
But then comes the disinformation: Israel, according to UPI, was born out of Palestinian bloodshed in a land that has been colonized by “Jewish settlers.”
The militia leader was born in a refugee camp in Khan Younis, then under Egyptian rule, to parents who were forced out of their homes by Jewish settlers during the 1948 war when Israel declared its independence.
The expulsion of around 750,000 Palestinians from their homes came in a campaign known as the Nakba, in which at least a dozen women were raped by Israeli forces and 15,000 other people were killed during a series of massacres.
The “Nakba” was not a deliberate Israeli “campaign” of expulsion as UPI contends. The Palestinian refugee problem was the result of five Arab armies attacking Israel in 1948, while advising Palestinians to leave their homes temporarily until the land was, indeed, free of Jews. The displacement of Palestinians was the direct result of the war.
UPI omits that detail, while accusing Israel of rape in 1948, presumably as a way of excusing or diminishing the very real and systematic Hamas sexual violence against Israeli women on October 7.
Likewise, UPI claims that Hamas has been fighting multiple wars against Israeli “occupation” for the sake of “Palestinian sovereignty.”
Over the years, Hamas has fought multiple wars against Israeli forces occupying Gaza where it remains popular for its stances of Palestinian sovereignty. Hamas has been condemned over the years as a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States.
Did Adam Schrader forget that Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 and fought all its wars with Hamas afterwards? Did he not read Hamas’ charter calling for a holy war against the Jews? Has he never listened to the group’s leaders urging an ethnic cleansing of Israel?
Hamas’ priority is not Palestinian sovereignty, but the destruction of the Jewish state.
Finally, Schrader outdoes himself with an appalling attempt to justify Hamas’ October 7 atrocities:
Israel has accused Sinwar of organizing the attack on October 7, which many have characterized as a terror attack. Hamas has blamed the attack on the killing of hundreds of Palestinians and arrest of many more by Israel in the months before the war broke out. Israel had also raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest sites.
Does UPI think that October 7 can be characterized as anything other than a genocidal terror attack? And why does it repeat Hamas’ excuses?
Could it be that Schrader is parroting Hamas’ very own English PR document released to the media to justify their massacre? Either way, UPI is effectively using Hamas’ own talking points.
Replete with errors, blatant anti-Israel bias, and some appalling Hamas-inspired justification for the events of October 7, it’s hard to believe a supposedly respectable news agency would publish such a piece.
We have filed a complaint to UPI with the demand that Adam Schrader’s story be reviewed and appropriate measures taken. Unfortunately, such is the state of the piece, its removal may be the only course of action that would rectify the problem.
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 When UPI and the Hamas Press Office Are Indistinguishable 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.