British Media Repeats Hamas Casualty Figures Uncritically, Remains Skeptical of Israeli Reports

Here is an article on the British media’s disgraceful performance in reporting on the Israeli strike on a Hamas command-and-control center inside a school complex: “Media Promotes Hamas Propaganda In Reporting On Gaza Attack, by Adam Levick, CAMERA, August 12, 2024:

An article in the Times, published on Saturday at 18:35 BST, by Amal Helles, includes this headline, using the 90 figure, though in scare quotes:

Pressure grows for ceasefire as Israeli strike on Gaza school ‘kills 90’…

Again, we have a Hamas figure — “90 killed” — stated as fact. All The Times had to do was add a few words: “According to Hamas, an Israeli strike at school complex kills 90.” “According to Hamas” — how hard is it to supply those words?

A Daily Mail article on Saturday, 12:05 BST, by Lettice Bromovsky, includes the following headline:

Dozens are killed and others wounded in Israeli airstrike on school in Gaza City

Here’s the strapline:

The airstrike hit Tabeen school in central Gaza City, about 100 people were killed…

Which is it? Were “dozens”killed, or was it “about 100 people”? The Daily Mail can’t make up its mind. The headline and the strapline do not agree.

The most notable aspect of the report is the final sentence of the first four paragraphs:

Palestinian health authorities say an Israeli airstrike hit a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City on Saturday, killing more than 100 people.

The Health Ministry’s Ambulance and Emergency service said the strike on the Tabeen school in central Gaza City also wounded 47 people.

The Israeli military acknowledged the strike, claiming it hit a Hamas command centre within the school.

It did not provide evidence.

Remarkably, the Mail journalist expresses more skepticism over intuitive Israeli allegations that Hamas exploited a school for military purposes than she did over Hamas’s casualty figures.

Israel’s best evidence that a command-and-control center was operating inside the school complex is the sheer number —38 — of Hamas operatives, whose identities were disclosed by the IDF, and who were killed at the site. This is overlooked by the Daily Mail journalist, who wrote about the IDF that “It did not provide evidence” of a “Hamas command center.” Of course it did: 38 bodies of identified Hamas combatants, a very large group to be found in one place.

A Sky News article published on Saturday at 16:53 BST, written by Claire Gilbody Dickerson, included this headline, claiming 80 killed.

80 people killed in Israeli strike on school-turned-shelter in Gaza City, Palestinian health officials say…

This claim comes not from “Palestinian health officials,” but rather, from Hamas, dictating what what those officials must say.

The Israeli army said it had struck a “Hamas control centre” but did not provide evidence and Hamas denied having a base at the school….

The evidence was indeed provided by the IDF: it can be found in the high number of Hamas combatants who were killed, and who had almost certainly congregated there, in the mosque part of the school complex, to run a command-and-control center.

In all these claims by Hamas of 50, 40, 80, 100, 93, 80 civilians killed, there has been no “confirmation” of any of these claims. The only number that has been confirmed is the 38 Hamas operatives who were killed during the attack, and whose names and photographs have been posted on social media by the IDF.

Though there are some differences in the outlets’ framing of the Saturday incident in Gaza City, almost all prioritize – and give considerable credibility to – Hamas’s narrative and unevidenced claims, while relegating Israeli military statements to the journalistic equivalent of throat-clearing. They dutifully ticked the “impartiality” box, while making it clear to their readers and viewers that they shouldn’t take IDF statements too seriously.

Not one of these reports includes a comment on Hamas claims about casualties that they were made “without providing evidence.” Yet that three-word dismissal is used constantly about Israel’s claim that it had struck a command-and-control center. The more than three dozen Hamas operatives killed in the attack should be evidence enough of such a center inside the mosque area of the complex.

Most of the British media outlets ascribe the Palestinian figures on casualties to the Gazan Health Ministry. But in every case they should have told the truth: all such figures are provided by Hamas, a recognized terror group and a serial liar about civilian casualties.

The Hamas-generated figures bounce around — from 40 to 80 to 100 and back to 80, before settling at the figure of 93 “civilian casualties.” These fluctuations ought to have alerted the British media to some Hamas fiddling with the figures, trying to decide just how large a claim of casualties it could get away with, but those media outlets have not expressed the slightest hint of skepticism about Hamas figures.