How CNN Reported on the IDF’s Spectacular Operation at Al-Shifa Hospital

On March 19, having feigned for several weeks that it was about to attack sites in central Gaza, the IDF instead launched a surprise attack on the Al-Shifa Hospital just outside Gaza City. During the previous month, many hundreds of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives and their families had been streaming into Al-Shifa, where they believed they would be safe from Israeli attack, and from where they could continue to operate a command-and-control center, provide security to more than a thousand fighters, and serve as a place where huge quantities of weapons could be safely stored.

The attack on Hamas and the PIJ at Al-Shifa, two weeks after it began, is already the most successful IDF operation of the Gaza war. At last count, more than 200 Hamas and PIJ fighters had been killed, and another 500 confirmed Hamas and PIJ fighters have been taken prisoner, a number carefully whittled down, after investigation, from the original figure of 800 people seized by the IDF. Both from documents the IDF captured, and from the methodical interrogations of prisoners, an enormous amount of intelligence information about the terror groups’ operations — about their remaining numbers and morale, their caches of weapons hidden across northern Gaza, their command-and-control centers, the condition of the hostages and where they were being held, and how they were being moved about the Strip (in many cases, the preferred method was above ground, in Red Crescent ambulances), and much more — has been gathered.

And during the two weeks of this complex operation at Al-Shifa, not a single patient, nor any member of the medical staff, nor any other kind of civilian, has been killed.

CNN, upon which tens of millions of people around the world depend for their news, has in its coverage of the IDF’s Al-Shifa operation performed dismally. More on that CNN coverage can be found here: “CNN’s coverage of Shifa Hospital is abysmal. Every IDF claim is doubted, and none of the Palestinian claims – unless they support the IDF statements,” Elder of Ziyon, March 31, 2024:

So far, Israel’s surprise raid at Shifa Hospital has been an amazing success. Hundreds of terrorists killed, hundreds more detained, few if any patients hurt by the IDF, incredible intelligence gathered, and caches of weapons found all that prove that Hamas and Islamic Jihad had turned the hospital into a command and control center again. Israel provided photos of the weapons, videos of the battles, even videos of terrorists admitting the hospital was used as their military hub.

CNN’s  Nadeen Ebrahim, Sana Noor Haq, Khader Al Za’anoun and Abeer Salman reported about Shifa last Thursday. The article does not even mention the IDF videos, the interrogations or other proofs for its statements, and it gives Palestinian denials of the undeniable equal weight to the IDF statements:

Israeli forces began their most recent operation there on March 18, saying they are conducting “precise operational activities against terrorists” located at Al-Shifa – a statement also echoed in November’s raid.

Yes, the IDF are “saying” that they are conducting “precise operational activities,” but that verb suggests a degree of doubt. Why did CNN not report that “the IDF inside Al-Shifa hospital is now conducting what it describes as “precise operational activities against terrorists”?

The IDF had returned in force to Al-Shifa despite Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in January announcing that the most intensive phase of operations in northern Gaza was complete.

The word “despite” suggests that there was something underhanded about the Israelis saying one thing in January — that the most intensive phase of operations in northern Gaza was “complete” — and then, in mid-March, going ahead anyway with its “most intensive operation” after having so unfairly lulled hundreds of Hamas operatives to return to Al-Shifa in early March. Hey, have you Muslim reporters forgotten what Muhammad said, that “war is deceit”? What’s sauce for the Muslim goose is sauce for the Jewish gander.

Speaking to his troops in a video shared by the Defense Ministry, Gallant on March 26 hailed the operation, saying the hospital was reached “in a flash” and that Hamas operatives still holed up at the hospital “are considering their future: surrender or death.”

Throughout its 11-day [now 14-day] operation, the Israeli military this month said it had detained hundreds of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants in and around the hospital, killing dozens of others.

No, CNN had the numbers wrong. After 11 days of fighting, the IDF had killed not “dozens” of terrorists (that CNN calls “militants”) but 170 Hamas and PIF combatants.

Around Al-Shifa, the IDF said in an update Wednesday, “approximately 200 terrorists have been eliminated in the area of the hospital since the beginning of the activity.” The IDF also claimed that “terrorists fired at IDF troops from within and outside of the ER (emergency room) building at the Shifa Hospital.”

CNN is unable to verify these numbers.

Israel has for years claimed that Hamas fighters are sheltering in mosques, hospitals and other civilian places to avoid Israeli attacks. Hamas has repeatedly denied the claims.

Why did CNN let Hamas have the last word, when it notes that “Hamas has repeatedly denied the claims”? Shouldn’t CNN have reported thus: “Despite Hamas’ denial that its fighters are sheltering in mosques, hospitals, and other civilian places, a mountain of evidence tells us otherwise. Thousands of Hamas and PIJ combatants,, mountains of weapons, rocket launchers, and entrances into the vast tunnel network beneath Gaza, have been found in all of these sites— mosques, schools, and above all, hospitals.

Israeli officials have echoed the accusations since October 7, and following their first raid in November escorted CNN into Gaza to see a newly exposed tunnel shaft discovered at the compound of Al-Shifa Hospital.

The evidence did not establish without a doubt that there was a Hamas command center underneath the hospital as Israel had claimed.

This is what CNN’s reporters in Gaza — all of whom are Arabs — claim. The IDF thinks that the evidence uncovered in its November raid on Al-Shifa was more than sufficient to identify a command center. The reporters should have said that “The IDF believes that the evidence clearly shows a Hamas command center had been in operation in the tunnel under the hospital.”

Of course, since CNN’s tour, more evidence has been uncovered – US intelligence confirmed that the hospital was used by Hamas and the New York Times reported that the tunnels underneath were much more extensive than what CNN has reported in November.

The CNN article, by contrast, emphasizes the false ideas that Israel’s November raid was a failure, that it nearly destroyed the hospital’s infrastructure then, that no evidence was found in November that Shifa was an important terror hub. It ignores the videos of terrorists admitting that everything Israel says about Shifa is true.

The Al-Shifa raid in November led not just Israel, but also the American government, to conclude that there was a Hamas command-and-control center in the tunnels underneath Al-Shifa. Surely CNN should have reported that “the American government agreed with the Israelis after the November raid on Al-Shifa that a Hamas command-and-control center was located in the tunnels directly underneath the hospital complex.”