Gaza hospital bombing obfuscation highlights MSM's failure in Israeli genocide

A preponderance of evidence was deliberately ignored when news outlets uncritically presented Palestinian and the IDF's opposing versions of events side by side.

Western media coverage of the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital massacre either failed to hold Israel to account for the rocket attack, or openly blamed Palestinian armed groups, like the New York Post. (Photo:Twitter)

The way Western mainstream media reported on Israel’s attack on the al-Ahli Arab Hospital this week in Gaza serves to highlight its levels of duplicity.

By passively and uncritically running two opposing narratives on who was responsible for a rocket attack, news outlets that did so helped Israel obfuscate the truth.

Journalists contend with the fog of war as much as the adversaries waging it, but they must never be party to it.

In its game of disinformation and war propaganda, Israel claimed an Islamic Jihad rocket had misfired, partially exploded in the sky before landing on the hospital on October 17, probably igniting a munitions dump there.

There were 470 Palestinians killed, according to Palestinian health officials.

Once US President Joe Biden not long after the incident said “the other team” was responsible, it seems herds of Western mainstream journalists found themselves once corralled into a paddock of compliance. An editor cannot be - and no editor in the West wants to be - right against the global hegemon.

Yet, the holes in the Israeli story were so obvious that not immediately pointing to these out amounted a failure of journalistic duty.

Less than 90 minutes after the deadly blast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s blast digital content advisor Hananya Naftali posted posted on X justifying the attack:

“Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza. A multiple number of terrorists are dead. It’s heartbreaking that Hamas is launching rockets from hospitals, mosques, schools, and using civilians as human shields.”

He deleted this tweet and claimed he had incorrectly posted it based on a Reuters news story that did not include the detail he had sent out.

Then, the narrative changed from justification to denial.