CNN Coverage on Gaza Conflict Buries 1,500+ Rockets Fired on Israel

For those somehow totally oblivious, or perhaps reading this in months or years from now, a quick recap is in order: At the time of publishing this article, Israel is under massive attack with wave after wave of missiles fired from Gaza. Over the last 48 hours, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other Gaza-based terror groups have fired in excess of 2,000 rockets at Israeli towns and cities.

But readers scanning a report by CNN’s Ben Wedeman, Hell has been unleashed in Gaza, would be forgiven for thinking that it was Israel that had fired a massive number of rockets at civilians in Gaza.

Burying All Sense of Context

While writers are free to focus on the experiences of one side, Wedeman’s report distorts the story by crossing multiple journalistic red lines. Readers are only introduced to residents of Gaza, without any attempt at balancing their experiences with those of Israelis suffering under the relentless rocket barrages fired from Gaza at Israel.

Speaking of which, only in the thirteenth paragraph does Wedeman make clear that the scenes of destruction and chaos he describes taking place in Gaza occur in the context of a conflict between Israel and Hamas, in which the latter has shot rockets at Israeli cities. Even then, the phrasing used misleads readers into thinking that Israel initiated the shooting:

Hamas retaliated for the strike on the Hanadi Tower, firing more than a hundred rockets toward Tel Aviv. One struck a bus in the town of Holon, south of the city. The barrage prompted authorities to briefly shut nearby Ben Gurion International Airport.” [emphasis added]

Moreover, while Hamas did indeed retaliate after the Hanadi tower building was destroyed by Israel, it had actually initiated this latest outbreak of hostilities and had been firing at Israel well before reacting to the destruction of the tower.

Crucially, the Hanadi building was not simply a residential or civilian office building but, according to a BBC report, housed offices used by the political leadership of Hamas.

Furthermore, readers are left uninformed that each rocket fired at Israel from Gaza is a war crime on two accounts: First, because terrorists in Gaza are aiming rockets at innocent Israeli civilians. Second, by storing weaponry and locating personnel in residential buildings, schools and other densely-populated non-military areas, Hamas and Islamic Jihad deliberately and cynically use civilians as human shields.

Is @CNN shilling for Hamas?

Why, is there no mention of rocketfire by Hamas and Islamic Jihad until paragraph 13, and even then it's only as a 'retaliatory' measure, and omits the wider context of over 1,500+ rockets fired into Israel, @BenCNN? pic.twitter.com/pVMiGlnDB4

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 13, 2021

One might think that a story featuring local people’s experiences of living through the deadly exchange of fire between Israel and Hamas would include some stories by those hurt by the practice of using human shields as cover for launching attacks on Israeli soil. Regrettably, though, readers are told only a one-dimensional story of Gazan suffering.

Moreover, they are left unaware of the huge suffering of Gazans at the hands of Hamas, like the routine denial of freedom of expression, the suppression of political expression, and the religious limitations imposed on the withering Gazan Christian community. Hamas is a veritable poxy on the population of Gaza, and such reporting serves to gloss over just how terrible its rule has been for the local population.

The Gazan Ministry of Health: A Propaganda Tool

The Gazan Ministry of Health is a Hamas-run organization, first and foremost serving as a propaganda tool for Gaza’s rulers. During previous rounds of conflict with Israel, it has come under accusations of meddling with the numbers, with various accounts indicating that its count of the dead includes people who died of natural causes at the time of fighting, as well as others who died as a result of domestic violence or who were executed by Hamas as collaborators.

Put simply, Gaza’s Health Ministry is not to be trusted.

And yet Wedeman uncritically cites the Palestinian Health Ministry spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qidra, who accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilian homes and crowded residential neighborhoods. Of course, Wedeman never asks about whether and how the tried-and-tested Hamas practice of storing weapons and locating military facilities in civilian areas should affect Israel’s policy.

Numerous Factual Inaccuracies

Perhaps even more unforgivable is the number of straight-out errors in the piece. For example, Wedeman claims:

Since Monday evening, Israel’s aerial operation has left more than 60 Gazans dead, militants among them, but more civilians, according to figures from the Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry. More than a dozen of were children. ” [emphasis added]

The claim that Israel is responsible for the death of over a dozen children is given as fact, but this simply is not true. As the Gaza-based Al Mezan Center for Human Rights has documented, in the first day of fighting, a rocket fired from Gaza fell short and killed eight civilians in the territory, including six children. Despite this information being publicly available, media outlets mystifyingly continue to blame Israel for their tragic deaths.

Source for that first point:@AlMezanCenter reports that a rocket fired from Gaza fell at approx. 18:10 pm on Monday 10 May, killing 8 civilians, including 6 children.

At the time, only Hamas was firing rockets.

This proves they were killed by Hamas.https://t.co/uCqU4qCtWC

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 11, 2021

Similarly, another sentence misinforms about the nature of the blockade of Gaza: “Cut off from the rest of the world by an Israeli blockade of Gaza’s land, air and sea dating back to 2007, many of Gaza’s inhabitants are dependent on foreign aid to survive.” But that’s not accurate — the blockade is operated by Israel and Egypt together. Israel’s attempts at a blockade would be useless without Egypt. Yet only Israel is mentioned.

Finally, the story ends with a piece of nasty, cheap “both-sides-ism,” in which Wedeman draws a false moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas:

Both Israel and the militant factions in Gaza show little inclination to de-escalate. Israel has mobilized reserves and is sending heavy armor to the Gaza area. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have put out videos showing their rocket teams at work. Each is determined to gouge out an eye for an eye.”