As the world focuses on Israel’s war with Iran, now entering its seventh day, Hamas is quietly exploiting the distraction. The terror group is flooding the media with fresh allegations of Israeli “massacres” at Gaza aid distribution sites—claims already shaping public perception and set to distort the historical record long after the war ends.
Over the past week, reports have emerged of alleged mass killings at sites run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), echoing the now-debunked stories from earlier this month that IDF soldiers had opened fire on crowds of desperate Palestinians.
On Monday, ABC News ran with the headline: “30 killed at Gaza aid site,” without scrutiny.
On Tuesday, The Guardian led with dramatic witness descriptions of “horror” after “Israeli forces fire at Palestinians waiting for aid trucks,” and the claims from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry in the subheading that 59 people were killed while “seeking food supplies.”
On Wednesday, the BBC reported: “Eleven killed by Israeli fire while seeking aid in Gaza, rescuers say”—adding that at least 33 had been “killed by Israeli gunfire and strikes” that day, citing anonymous “rescuers and medics.”
No footage. Just the claims of Gaza’s civil defense spokesman, Mahmud Bassal — recently exposed as a Hamas operative.
Is Hamas, upset that world attention is no longer on Gaza, claiming there’s been an Israeli massacre and feeding unverified casualty figures to the media? https://t.co/teAzN71D5y
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) June 17, 2025
Incredibly, the BBC begins by quoting Hamas’ so-called civil defense agency’s tale that Israeli soldiers had randomly “opened fire and launched several shells” at a crowd waiting on Salah al-Din Road for food supplies—a ludicrous allegation that the BBC presents as credible. Israel’s denial, buried just below, doesn’t even appear to refer to the same incident. Instead, the IDF statement mentions an event in the Nuseirat area earlier, where soldiers “fired warning shots overnight after a group approached them in a manner that posed a potential threat,” and adds that no injuries were reported.
Yet actual footage from Gaza painted a very different picture from the sensational tales of mass slaughter of hungry Palestinians. On Wednesday, retired British army officer Colonel Richard Kemp posted a video from a GHF aid distribution site, showing calm, orderly operations—nothing resembling the chaos or carnage described in media reports.
The media ran with Hamas-provided casualty reports—again.
No investigation. No verification. Just headlines that blame Israel.
But the truth about these so-called “aid site massacres” tells a very different story. pic.twitter.com/m7HpjJoQeV— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) June 19, 2025
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation itself has also repeatedly denied the claims, issuing statements refuting reports of shootings at its sites.
Still, major outlets like CNN, the BBC, NBC News, ABC News, and Reuters continue publishing Hamas-supplied figures without verification. Some now cite anonymous “rescuers,” others rely on unnamed “medics.” But the effect is the same: Hamas says, the media prints.
As HonestReporting—and our board member Salo Aizenberg—have documented, Hamas has systematically manipulated Gaza casualty numbers throughout this war: inflating the toll, duplicating names, listing non-existent individuals, and counting combatants as civilians. Yet instead of challenging these lies, the media has become their amplifier.
The consequences are not limited to the present news cycle. What’s happening now will shape the historical narrative. The media is helping cement the lie that Israel recklessly targeted civilians, that it waged war with cruelty, and, most dangerously, that it committed genocide.
That is Hamas’ ultimate goal: to stain Israel with the gravest moral crime imaginable.
And unless we keep setting the record straight, the media will help them do exactly that.
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