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Biased Coverage of Gaza Hostage Rescue Serves Hamas

Media outlets went out of their way on Saturday (June 8) to make Israel’s heroic rescue of four Gaza hostages look tainted or even immoral, with a reframing that served Hamas’ strategy. Instead of simply…

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Media outlets went out of their way on Saturday (June 8) to make Israel’s heroic rescue of four Gaza hostages look tainted or even immoral, with a reframing that served Hamas’ strategy.

Instead of simply reporting the news — that Israeli hostages Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv had been rescued in a rare and complex operation in the heart of Gaza — media outlets chose to label it as one of the “bloodiest” raids of the war.

They used three tactics to achieve that goal, which effectively turned justice into injustice:

  • Minimizing the achievement by using the term “freed” instead of “rescued” to describe the hostages
  • Emphasizing the Palestinian death toll based on Hamas figures
  • Whitewashing the terrorists’ use of civilians as human shields

 

The Washington Post, for example, committed two of these journalistic crimes:

Its headline led with the number of Palestinian casualties (without questioning how many of them were terrorists), its sub-header called the operation “brazen” and the lead paragraph labeled the operation “one of the bloodiest raids of the war.”

The fact that the hostages were rescued alive is mentioned only in the second paragraph. And the word “Blitz” is casually thrown into the fifth paragraph, evoking comparisons to Nazi warfare.

But what’s hidden in plain sight is the complete whitewashing of Hamas’ strategy of using civilians as human shields. The article simply mentions that the hostages had been held in “buildings,” omitting the fact that they were kept in families’ homes in the crowded multi-story structures, amid the civilian population.

NPR‘s coverage has similar faults: The Palestinian death toll is used to frame the hostage rescue with descriptions like “the streets were…covered in blood,” and the sites of the hostage captivity are called “locations in Nuseirat in central Gaza” — which could mean anything from tunnels to military compounds.

Did the Washington Post or NPR journalists independently verify whether the blood in the streets belonged to terrorists or innocent civilians? Or is blood used here — as in ancient times — to demonize Jews?

Either way, their coverage whitewashes the terrorists.

Related Reading: Media Reframe Israel’s Dramatic Rescue of Gaza Hostages

Selective Terminology

Reuters, which also called the operation “one of the single bloodiest Israeli assaults of the eight-month-old war,” used another tactic while focusing on the Palestinian casualties.

One of its headlines used the vague term “freed,” which can be attributed to the goodwill of the terrorists, instead of the value-laden word “rescued” that may paint Hamas as bad:

BBC did the same, while obscuring the identity of Hamas terrorists and IDF rescuers:

Cognitive Dissonance

But some media outlets didn’t just change words. They descended into a total cognitive dissonance in their attempt to put the onus on Palestinian victimhood.

AP, for example, shamelessly quoted casualty data from the Palestinian health ministry whose reliability had been questioned by the wire service only a day earlier.

And a BBC anchorwoman expected the IDF to warn Gazans ahead of such a dangerous rescue operation:

Similarly, a Sky News anchorwoman gave a platform to Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti, and failed to correct him when he called Israeli hostages “prisoners.” She also didn’t remind him about starvation and sexual assault when he suggested that those released in the past had been well treated by Hamas:

And the same network’s Alex Crawford didn’t even bother waiting for more details of the operation to emerge before she labeled it “a massacre”:

The underlying premise of such biased coverage is that Israelis should not fight for their lives because it comes at a cost. They should just sit back and let terrorists slaughter and kidnap their brethren because they run and hide among innocent people.

But media should stop ignoring the increasing evidence of Gazan civilian complicity with Hamas, as well as the fact that Hamas bears responsibility for putting the entire Gazan population in danger since its October 7th attack on the Jewish state.

On Saturday, Israeli special forces undertook a mission in an area that became a legitimate target by virtue of the presence of hostages. As Noa, Almog, Andrey, and Shlomi were rescued after eight months in captivity, Hamas terrorists fired RPGs at them from within the Nuseirat market area. IDF troops responded to save their lives and bring them home.

Any other way to frame it serves the terrorists.

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region.

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Rinat Harash
Rinat Harash
Rinat Harash, Ph.D, is a veteran news media professional, with 15 years of experience as a Reuters journalist, video editor and producer covering Israel and the Palestinian territories.
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