As the war between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza-based Islamic terrorist organization, continues into its 11th week, many news media outlets in Canada have decided, as is their legitimate right, to focus on the human faces inside the Gaza Strip as the war continues. But doing so requires not only a rigorous dedication to factual accuracy, but a comprehensive view so consumers of the news can receive a full picture of current events.

In the December 15 program for Front Burner, a CBC News podcast entitled: “Desperation in Gaza amid winter, war and hunger,” host Daemon Fairless interviewed Bushra Khalidi, a policy lead with Oxfam based in Ramallah, who provided an overly narrow image of the war inside the Gaza Strip.

Early in the interview, Bushra stated that “Since the beginning of December, we have very little understanding of actually the real amount of fatalities,” but this did not stop her from parroting Hamas’ casualty disinformation, making the unsubstantiated claim that “at least at 18,000, but 70% of which are women and children, about 7500 children” have been killed in the Hamas-Israel war thus far.

While, to his credit, Fairless acknowledged the casualty figures as originating from Hamas during his introduction to the segment, Bushra did no such thing. That Hamas is the singular source of casualty data from Gaza is not the only problem; the terrorist group also intentionally fails to distinguish between civilians and armed combatants, or those killed in Israeli strikes or at the hands of other Palestinians, including the errant Palestinian rocket which struck the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza on October 17, but which was widely and erroneously blamed on Israel.

Notably, the term “children” remains undefined by both the host and the guest, leaving listeners with the mistaken impression that the term presumably refers to a little boy or girl. In reality, when Palestinian officials use the term “children,” they often are referring to those under the age of 18.

These distinctions are hardly immaterial. Leaving the term “children” undefined can mean that a 16-year-old member of Hamas and child soldier, can be described as a child in a news report, misleadingly creating an image of an innocent child, and not an armed combatant killed while actively fighting Israeli soldiers.

In fact, media reports have shown that Hamas uses adolescents, often as young as 14 years old, in their war against Israel, arming them with deadly weapons and sending them into combat.

When Fairless asked Khalidi what the challenges exist for getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, Khalidi didn’t miss an opportunity to attack Israel. She proclaimed that “the short answer to this question is the Israeli siege on Gaza is the major challenge for full access of aid into Gaza.”

Fairless never challenged Khalidi on this point, though he can and indeed should have pointed out the large number of aid trucks which have entered Gaza in recent weeks, Israel’s opening of a secondary port of entry, and even accepting of airborne aid into the territory.

Khalidi never mentioned, nor did Fairless point out, Hamas’ theft of international humanitarian aid in Gaza, meant for its own people, but which the terrorist group has used in its pursuit of war against Israel. Hamas’ extensive network of underground tunnels, made with enormous amounts of concrete meant for Gaza’s infrastructure, or the group’s continued firing of rockets even while it claims no fuel exists to run hospital generators, are examples which never received mention during the 22-minute segment.

Notably, despite widespread allegations that the Gaza Strip has suffered under an oppressive Israeli blockade since 2006, Khalidi reminisced to a time only six months ago in Gaza, when she participated in a family affair which she described as “the most lavish buffet that I had ever seen in my entire life.”

There is little doubt that civilians in Gaza are suffering as a result of Hamas’ war on Israel, but Khalidi’s refusal to state anything about Hamas’ theft of aid and her uncritical repetition of Hamas disinformation – and more worryingly, Fairless’ decision not to challenge her on these allegations – presented listeners with a severely skewed image of events inside Gaza.