In the journalistic equivalent of missing the forest for the trees, two recent reports featured CBC journalist Evan Dyer informing Canadians that Israeli forces had damaged a small cemetery in Gaza, which was housing the remains of soldiers from the British Commonwealth, who were interred there in the First and Second World Wars.

The damage had taken place because Israeli forces were digging in an effort to destroy a Hamas terror tunnel, as Dyer briefly acknowledged. But rather than focus on why Hamas would be digging tunnels underneath a cemetery, necessitating the military actions by Israel, Dyer’s gaze remained exclusively on Israel.

In his February 17 video report, “Israeli military confirms it dug up Gaza cemetery where Canadians were buried,” Dyer did not show any experts on tunnel warfare who could speak about Hamas’ widespread use of tunnels to store weapons, hostages or terrorists, nor did he tell viewers about the extensive documentation of this practice by the Palestinian terrorist group.

Click below to watch the segment:

Rather than speak to experts, Dyer’s agenda was made crystal clear: he spoke to 91-year-old Grace Bolton, whose brother was interred there, who said “I think it’s terrible. It should never have happened.”

What is in fact “terrible” is how a genocidal Islamic terrorist group decided to weaponize civilian areas, as they have done with hospitals, but Bolton offered no comment on that.

Dyer’s report also featured Berkeley Lawrence of the Royal Canadian Legion, from the village of Carbonear, Newfoundland, who confidently declared that “there can’t be a justifiable reason to destroy a cemetery.”

What Lawrence seems entirely unaware of is that when a terrorist group dead-set on destroying Israel uses such an area to amass weapons in order to massacre Israeli civilians, then they are to blame, not the military seeking to disarm those same terrorists.

While Lawrence may not have to worry about such concerns in rural Newfoundland, it is a deadly reality for Israel, and one that they cannot blithely dismiss, as he has done.

The following day, Dyer published a follow-up article, where the headline – unlike the video’s headline – at least acknowledges the presence of a Hamas tunnel “IDF says it dug up Canadian soldiers’ graves to destroy Gaza tunnel.” Nevertheless, it is little better, with Dyer’s focus on Israel’s actions, rather than Hamas’ use of the area to build a tunnel.

Dyer also quoted Sharon Gibbs, the niece of a Canadian interred in Gaza, saying “it’s pretty disgusting, especially since he was a peacekeeper. So much for peace.”

What was indeed “disgusting” was Hamas’ use of cemeteries to build tunnels, but as with the other interviewers, Gibbs apparently had no opinions on that.

While Dyer notes that he was unable to get an official Israeli statement (only unattributed IDF statements for background purposes), this was no excuse to rely on a collection of non-experts from the other side of the world, who offered no insight nor expertise. Meanwhile, he could have asked Hamas for an explanation as to why the terrorist group uses tunnels in civilian areas, or he could have cited studies which have documented its use of civilian infrastructure.

But Dyer – a reporter we regard as having an extensive history in normalizing anti-Israel narratives under the guise of journalism – did no such thing, and instead, turned a story about Hamas’ war crimes into an attack on Israel.