The Associated Press was recently exposed over its long-running usage of the unreliable eyewitness accounts of the director of Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital, who was unmasked as an associate of recently-eliminated Hamas leader Ismael Haniyeh.
Dr. Fadel Naim, whose Facebook page is awash with violent and antisemitic rhetoric, was also revealed as a source of information about the conflict that was later found to be false.
The issue of untrustworthy sources extends beyond the Associated Press and its reliance on Naim. We can now reveal that numerous other leading news organizations have also published information from questionable sources in Gaza. These individuals, often cloaked in professional titles that lend them a veneer of credibility, have been found, like Naim, to support violent terror activities.
The ‘Journalist’ Documenting Gaza
In addition to the Gaza freelance journalists who HonestReporting revealed had invaded Israel on October 7 and were paid by news outlets for the documentation of their crimes, other self-described journalists in Gaza have played a key role in providing eyewitness accounts to high-profile news outlets.
One such figure is Plestia Alaqad, an “aspiring journalist” who has been featured in various media outlets, including the Washington Post and recent opinion editorials in The Guardian. Despite her portrayal as a credible source, Alaqad and others like her have been found to disseminate misleading information that aligns with Hamas propaganda.
In one recent Guardian piece, Alaqad repeated the false claim that a Lancet “study” stated that up to 186,000 people could be dead in Gaza, a figure that actually came from a letter to the journal and was discredited.
Alaqad has also been known to spread Hamas propaganda and anti-Israel libels, including claims of genocide and the false assertion that went unchallenged during a BBC interview that Israel killed 1,000 Palestinians in a “massacre” at the Al-Ahli Hospital—an explosion that was later determined to have been caused by an errant Islamic Jihad rocket.
Yet, this is the individual that reputable media outlets, including the Washington Post, Guardian and BBC, turn to for “expert” testimony. They present her as a journalist, lending her a veneer of respectability, while ignoring the fact that she consistently promotes narratives that are not just misleading but dangerous.
View this post on Instagram
In a similar case, BBC Verify, the team responsible for fact-checking news events, relied on the testimony of Mahmoud Awadeyah, a journalist reportedly affiliated with an Iranian news outlet linked to the Revolutionary Guards Corps. Awadeyah, who has openly praised terrorist attacks against Israelis, was cited by the BBC to support claims that Israel deliberately targeted civilians during an aid convoy incident in Gaza.
Heartwrenching Civilian Stories
Numerous news outlets have not only relied on questionable figures like Plestia Alaqad but have also turned to other so-called eyewitnesses whose credibility has been undermined by disturbing online postings.
Dunia Abu Rahma, a 22-year-old architecture student from Gaza, for example, appeared on CNN’s Anderson Cooper and NBC News, where she painted a heart-wrenching picture of life in Gaza, emphasizing her desire for peace and a normal life. “All I want them to know is that there are civilians, people who wish to live a normal, peaceful life,” she told Anderson Cooper, framing herself as an innocent bystander hoping for peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.
However, Abu Rahma’s social media history tells a very different story. HonestReporting uncovered numerous posts where she celebrated the October 7 Hamas massacre, glorified violence against Israelis, and expressed antisemitic views. On the day of the attack, she tweeted with apparent glee about the invasion of Israeli communities, even expressing a desire to participate in the violence. In another instance, she lamented that Adolf Hitler did not finish his Holocaust of Jews.
Hatred Masked by ‘Advocacy’
HonestReporting has also found examples of media outlets relying on individuals from charitable organizations or activists whose online presence reveals a pattern of promoting extremist views or spreading misinformation.
The BBC cited a central Gaza-based “advocacy officer” for a UK charity, Tarneen Hammad, in a recent piece that cited her determination to work for “justice and peace.”
Yet, shortly after the October 7 attack, Hammad was tweeting support for the horrific massacre.
Former Amnesty activist Hind Khoudary was used by the BBC, The Washington Post, Associated Press, and The Independent, as a source in the Strip before she was outed as a Hamas collaborator whose information led to the arrest of Palestinian peace activists. In 2020, she informed on Gazans who participated in a peace dialogue with Israelis, resulting in their imprisonment on charges of “treason.”
Sham Sources
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.
