Key Takeways:
- Global media framed Gaza’s Omari Mosque as a cultural casualty struck by Israel but failed to mention its documented role as a Hamas venue.
- HonestReporting uncovered public social media posts showing senior Hamas leaders and terrorist activity inside the mosque.
- Audiences were given a partial story, with none of the major outlets investigating what the mosque itself publicly revealed.
For months, the Great Omari Mosque in Gaza has been described by the BBC, The New York Times, Reuters, and The Guardian as a treasured heritage site reduced to rubble by Israeli airstrikes.
Reports focused on the building’s historic value and the scale of its destruction. Some sufficed with a single line that Israel said there were Hamas tunnels beneath the site. None investigated further.
None asked what actually happened inside the mosque during years of Hamas rule. None looked at the mosque’s own public social media accounts.
HonestReporting did. And we found that the mosque’s official Facebook page shows that it functioned not only as a religious center but also as a regular venue for senior Hamas leaders — including former Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, as well as the terror group’s co-founder Mahmoud al-Zahar. The mosque’s public page also glorified Hamas terrorists and hosted their funerals.
Our finds raise serious questions about how international media betray journalistic standards of investigation and verification, out of ignorance, incompetence or sheer bias aimed at demonizing the Jewish state.
Some background: The Great Omari Mosque is one of Gaza’s oldest religious structures. The site has held successive churches and mosques for more than a thousand years and is considered a major cultural landmark. It is referenced in a 2024 UNESCO damage assessment submitted by Palestinian authorities after the mosque was struck during the war.
That heritage is real. But it is only part of the story.
Photographs posted publicly by the mosque on its official Facebook page include images of Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 2023 massacre in southern Israel, praying inside the mosque. A further search of professional photographs from the mosque showed another former leader of the terror group — Ismail Haniyeh — attending a funeral for a Hamas terrorist.
Photos on the mosque’s Facebook page also show Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and one of the group’s most influential figures, delivering an address in the mosque and attending official Hamas events there.
Other posts celebrate terrorists and show funerals held on the mosque grounds for Hamas members wrapped in the terror group’s green flags.
It’s not surprising that the funerals were attended by armed Hamas terrorists in uniform and green headbands, as captured and posted online by Anas al-Sharif, an Al-Jazeera “journalist” who was exposed as a Hamas terrorist.
None of this appeared in any Western media report.
Instead, international coverage depicted Israel’s strikes as an attack on culture and history. Reuters ran a photo graphic of destroyed Gaza landmarks including the Omari mosque. The BBC highlighted the Palestinian request for UNESCO assistance. The New York Times published an interactive feature on Gaza heritage damage focusing on the emotional loss. The Guardian profiled local residents who vowed to rebuild their historic sites.
But none of these outlets noted that the mosque repeatedly hosted senior Hamas leadership and terrorists. None mentioned that under international law, a site of worship that is used for military or terrorist activity loses its protected status.
This omission matters. Audiences who were told that Israel struck a cultural landmark were not told that this same landmark was regularly used by Hamas leaders and that it literally functioned as a center of Hamas activity.
They were not shown what the mosque itself publicly posted. They were given a partial picture presented as the full story.
The Great Omari Mosque is indeed historic. It is also, by its own documentation, a Hamas venue. HonestReporting did what any journalist could have done. We checked the public record. The mystery is why the global media did not.
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