The Independent claims in a headline that “2016 was ‘deadliest year’ for West Bank children in a decade,” but the misleading report fails to live up to fundamental journalistic standards.
Correspondent Bethan McKernan, who is based in Beirut, uses DCI-Palestine (an anti-Israel advocacy group, more on this group below) to accuse Israel of unnecessarily killing Palestinian youths. To a lesser extent the article quotes Human Rights Watch, which has its own axe to grind with Israel.
McKernan speaks about the period of time from October 2015 to the present, with a particular focus on children.
But she fails to acknowledge that the Palestinians carried out 2,732 terror attacks against Israelis, many perpetrated by minors. This wave of terror was characterized by shootings, stabbings, car rammings, and firebombings. In other words, the spike in Palestinian deaths corresponded with a spike in Palestinian attacks.
Moreover, only 228 Palestinians died in carrying out their attacks. So even when Israelis were under direct and often deadly assault, Palestinian attackers survived over 90 percent of the time.
That indicates an impressive degree of Israeli restraint by any standards.
Mother of Hallel Yaffa Ariel at her daughter’s funeral. Hallel, 13, was killed by a 17 year-old Palestinian. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90
Quoting DCI-Palestine, the Independent accuses Israel of having a “shoot to kill policy.” This is simply untrue. This information is easily and publicly available:
Simply put, the rules of engagement in law enforcement are: The army requires soldiers to use as much force as necessary to neutralize a threat. But once that person or those people are deemed no longer a danger, no additional force is to be used.
Nearly all the information in this article was provided by “Defense for Children International Palestine” (DCI-Palestine), which The Independent incorrectly calls a “charity.”
A review of DCI-Palestine’s web site and Twitter account reveals no evidence of donations to charitable causes or charitable work. Our search did, however, reveal significant anti-Israel advocacy. We could not find any criticism at all of the Palestinian government or Palestinian terror organizations, who cause significant suffering to Palestinian people.
DCI-Palestine is not a “charity” as the Independent claims, nor is it even pro-Palestinian. DCI-Palestine is merely anti-Israel.
An organization like DCI-Palestine may choose to adopt an anti-Israel agenda and a newspaper may even quote them as a source, but journalistic transparency requires the media to disclose an organization’s agenda to its readers.
The Independent has breached both basic standards and common sense to construct a highly misleading, agenda-driven attack against Israel.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
