KEY TAKEAWAYS
- CBC’s headline described the targets merely as “2 people,” withholding the central fact that Israel identified both men as members of Hamas’ engineering unit.
- Reuters and CBC emphasized Hamas-controlled casualty figures while failing to tell readers that Israel regularly publishes names, photographs and operational details about terrorists killed in Gaza.
- The strike killed two Hamas terrorists without killing surrounding civilians, evidence of Israel’s capacity to conduct precise counter-terrorism operations that the article did not highlight.
On Sunday, September 13, an Israeli airstrike struck a vehicle in Gaza, killing Hassan Ali Abu Nada and Abd al-Rahim Ahmad Khalil Khawa, two members of the engineering unit of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Incredibly, when CBC News, Canada’s taxpayer-funded public broadcaster, republished an article originally from the Thomson Reuters news wire, this essential information was nowhere to be seen in the headline, and only made an appearance in the third paragraph.
CBC’s Headline Conceals the Victims’ Hamas Identities
The September 13 article, “Israeli strike kills 2 people in Gaza, medics say,” simply stated that an Israeli strike “kills 2,” making no apparent effort to note that they were Hamas terrorists, or at bare minimum, that Israel had stated as such. The text in the third paragraph stated that “the Israeli military said the strike targeted two Hamas militants, without giving further information.”
In the article, readers were told that “more than 1,300 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory’s health officials, while the Israeli military says four Israeli soldiers have been killed.”
It added that “Hamas does not usually disclose information about fatalities among its fighters.”
While Hamas may not publicly share the names of its deceased terrorists, Israel has documented these identities, a curious omission on Thomson Reuters (and CBC News’ part).
Israel Publicly Identifies Terrorists Eliminated in Gaza
Just two days before this article, Israel shared that it had eliminated Moamen Jabr Al-Sayed Abu Labda, the head of a sniper cell in southern Gaza. The same day, it announced the death of Muhammad Yazouri, the commander of a Hamas brigade, and Hudheifa Muammar, a company commander, and Muhammad Bahjat Rashi, a member of the same brigade.
Another such terrorist killed over the last year include Ismail Ibrahim Darwish Kandil, a member of Hamas who participated in the October 7, 2023 massacres in southern Israel, and was filmed doing so.
This is all easily-accessible public information, and Israel frequently even shares the faces and other pertinent information of these deceased terrorists, which Thomson Reuters and CBC News could have shared with readers. But they chose not to do so, instead simply stating that Hamas does not disclose this information. However, this does not minimize the obligation of Canadian news media outlets to inform Canadians, rather than providing them with only part of the story.
The Strike’s Precision Challenges the Media Narrative
The other remarkable feature of the September 13 event (and what was not mentioned) is the remarkable precision on Israel’s part, of striking two terrorists in a densely-populated urban zone, and killing only them. This ability to strike terrorists offers yet more evidence that – contrary to widely-parroted claims in the news media and elsewhere – Israel has not been cavalier about civilian casualties in Gaza, and in fact has made concerted efforts to target only combatants, not innocents, unlike Palestinian terrorists, who have deliberately targeted civilians.
However, this relevant detail was not highlighted as evidence of Israel’s focused counter-terrorism operations. Instead, the headline – which failed to mention the terrorists’ identity – and the article itself, which did not acknowledge that Israel has identified many of the deceased terrorists – left significant and indeed central details out of the story. Accordingly, HonestReporting Canada filed a complaint with CBC News directly calling for corrective action. Stay tuned to this page for future updates.
