The shame of the world’s media

There was an explosion at or near a (Baptist) hospital in Gaza. Within minutes Hamas said it was a missile strike from Israel that demolished the hospital and there were 500 dead.

Despite this claim coming from the same organisation that deliberately executed babies a couple of weeks earlier, and despite no corroborating evidence, the world’s media trumpeted this claim as front page news. It has caused riots and attacks against Jews and embassies.

The media never asked how you can know 500 people are dead within minutes. The death toll from the attacks inside Israel is still not fully known weeks later.

It now turns out that:

• There is zero evidence that there was a missile from Israel but there are six different videos (including Al Jazheera and Tass) showing missile from Gaza that didn’t cross into Israel.
• There is audio evidence of two Hamas operatives discussing the missile and that it came from the cemetery behind the hospital
• The evidence points to the missile hitting the car park, not the hospital proper. While there is some damage to the hospital, it has in no way been destroyed.
• There is zero evidence for the claims 500 are dead. Based on photos of the hospital, it looks very unlikely unless 400 of them were sitting in cars in the car park.

Any loss of life at the hospital is sad and tragic. But the media should be ashamed that they repeated an unverified claim from a terrorist organisation and published it so prominently. Millions of people believed the original story, and will probably never accept any other version.