For the second time in less than three weeks, a CBC radio program based in British Columbia has uncritically platformed baseless anti-Israel propaganda.

On August 15, Daybreak Kamloops, hosted by Shelley Joyce, featured a segment entitled: “Dangers for children in Gaza,” with guest Patrick Robitaille of Save the Children Canada.

Listen to the full segment:

Joyce introduced the segment by telling listeners that ceasefire talks were underway in Qatar, “hoping to bring an end to Israel’s bombing of Gaza,” all while failing to utter a single word about the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas, all but erasing them completely from the equation. In fact, at no time during the entire segment did Joyce or Robitaille ever mention the word Hamas a single time.

Joyce continued by claiming that “the Gaza Health Ministry has reported 40,000 people have died over the last 10 months since October, with 15,000 of those being children.” What Joyce chose to hide from the public is that the so-called “Gaza health Ministry” is a branch of Hamas whose numbers cannot be taken at face value and which are statistically implausible, all while ignoring Israel’s statements that more than 17,000 Hamas fighters have been killed.

As for the Hamas propaganda claiming that 15,000 children in Gaza have been killed, that flies in the face of a United Nations statement – itself entirely unverifiable – which in May offered a figure roughly half that. Either way, Joyce did not share that Hamas’ figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians, nor did she point out that ‘children’ according to Hamas could be 16 and 17-year-old fighters (child soldiers), and their numbers also include those killed by Hamas rockets and even natural causes.

Joyce’s sloppy reporting was a fitting introduction for Robitaille, who falsely and scandalously claimed that “Last weekend we saw a massive attack on schools that was sheltering families, and hundreds of people being killed.” He was presumably referring to a building formerly being used by Al Tabi’een School. Before the smoke even cleared, Hamas was claiming 100 were killed, an allegation that according to experts in warfare is virtually impossible to know instantly.

But what Robitaille dishonestly hid from listeners is that Israel, brandishing names, titles and even photographs, showed that there were a confirmed 31 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists killed at the site, showing that it was hardly a civilian site.

However, Robitaille, rather than offering any semblance of factual accuracy, simply repeated Hamas’ propaganda, hook, line and sinker. And Joyce, for her part, failed to challenge him in the slightest.

Robitaille made multiple false statements throughout the interview, including the incredible claim that there is “almost no aid coming to them” (children) in Gaza. But Robitaille is surely aware that there are hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks entering Gaza daily, and more food coming into the territory now than before Hamas’ massacres of October 7. Once again, Joyce made zero attempt to push back on her guest, giving him a platform to spew anti-Israel disinformation entirely unchallenged.

Momentarily masquerading herself as a thoughtful questioner, Joyce asked her guest “Is it true that all schools in Gaza have been bombed?” before Robitaille launched into a predictable tirade, though once again neither guest nor host pointed out the inescapably obvious and towering detail, namely Hamas’ transformation of civilian infrastructure into terrorist infrastructure, thereby changing their use entirely.

Robitaille’s whitewashing of Hamas was a prominent theme throughout the interview. When Joyce asked him about aid coming into Gaza, he noted that there are also barriers of aid delivery into the territory. But lest the public think that he was going to acknowledge Hamas’ theft of aid or the incompetence of United Nations agencies in distributing aid, Robitaille found a way to once again blame Israel, citing “the safety of aid workers,” while censoring out any mention of Hamas’ grotesque use of health facilities, including hospitals and ambulances, for its murderous efforts.

The interview ended with Robitaille’s exhortation for “a ceasefire” and a stoppage of “sending weapons and fueling this war,” erasing any mention of Hamas’ central role in provoking and perpetuating the war for nearly a year.

And as is her custom throughout the interview, Joyce remained silent in the face of Robitaille’s incessant anti-Israel talking points. The August 15 interview on Daybreak Kamloops featured host Shelley Joyce giving a platform to unfounded anti-Israel falsehoods which we are of the view stands in violation of the CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices.