CNN persisted Tuesday in publishing fake news pushed by Hamas, claiming that “dozens” of Palestinians had been killed near an American-run aid site in Gaza, despite Israeli denials and a history of Hamas lies.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told journalists: “The IDF did not fire at civilians in, or near, humanitarian aid distribution zones.”
The story came a day after U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee demanded that CNN and other outlets retract false reporting of dozens of Palestinians being killed at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) site Sunday.
CNN reported its story under the headline, “Dozens of Palestinians killed near Gaza aid distribution point, health officials say, in third day of shooting.” It cited the Gaza “health ministry” — without noting that the “ministry” is controlled entirely by Hamas and has a long record of false and sensational claims — and reported that “Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians as they made their way to the distribution site in Tel al-Sultan in Rafah.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that its forces had fired, half a kilometer away from the aid site, at a few people who had deviated from the route and had ignored warning shots.
The IDF added: “IDF troops are not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites. The warning shots were fired approximately half a kilometer away from the humanitarian aid distribution site toward several suspects who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat to them.”
The CNN story cited only part of the IDF statement, leaving out the denial of the main claim. CNN also left out the GHF’s denials, and its report that aid had been delivered to civilians without incident.
“The incident marks the third day in a row that people have been killed on their way to the GHF distribution point,” CNN added, without noting that previous reports have been false.
The Trump administration is backing GHF as an alternative to aid distribution by the United Nations, which has been hijacked by Hamas, which steals aid and sells it to Palestinians, profiting while controlling them.
The GHF also supports Israel’s military effort to root out Hamas by allowing that effort to proceed while letting Palestinians continue to receive aid. Hence Hamas, the UN, and, apparently, the media want to stop it.
On Monday, the BBC — which also falsely reported Hamas’s claims Sunday — criticized reports about a video purporting to show the “killings” but then also, like CNN, persisted in publishing Hamas’s claims Tuesday.
Update: Dr. Johnnie Moore of GHF told reporters Tuesday that the incident “did not happen in our site. It happened outside the security corridor, on the way to our site.” He said that the IDF had been transparent in its response to media reports and to GHF’s own questions — in contrast to Hamas, which he said had been “abundantly clear that it was disincentivizing individuals to even go in the direction of the corridor to these [aid] sites.” On Sunday, he said, Hamas killed people and then “spread a global disinformation campaign” in which mainstream media had willingly participated.
He added that it is important that Palestinians stay within the boundaries of secure corridors that the IDF had established for people to access the aid sites.
“Some people aren’t interested in being corrected,” Dr. Moore said, referring to false media reports.
Update 2: The GHF said in a statement:
From day one, there have been well-organized efforts aimed at undermining the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, not because our model isn’t working, but because it is. We are undeterred. GHF continues full-steam ahead, delivering more than seven million meals in just eight days without a single incident. In an operating environment as complex and volatile as Gaza, that kind of safe, direct, and large-scale aid delivery is unprecedented. We remain focused on one thing: getting food to the people who need it most. And right now, we are the only organization doing that at scale, with consistency and safety.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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