MARCH 25 UPDATE: CLICK HERE

A recent commentary published in The Walrus magazine fixating on the mechanics of how the dead are counted in the Gaza Strip, not only utterly ignored any and all inconvenient facts, but blithely ignored the very reason why there are any deaths in the coastal enclave at all.

The column entitled: “The Weight of Numbers,” published in the March/April edition by Nora Loreto, a longtime anti-Israel activist on social media, attempted to portray itself as an analysis of the challenges inherent in counting casualties in the Hamas-Israel war, but ended up being a sophomoric defence of Hamas’ disreputable figures.

Loreto complained that “media outlets often emphasize that casualty estimates are coming from the Hamas-run Gazan health ministry, seemingly implying that the numbers should be questioned or can’t be trusted.”

While some news stories do tell the public that Hamas runs the so-called “Gaza Ministry of Health,” that isn’t universal. In fact, CBC’s former Ombudsman Jack Nagler even instructed editorial staff to avoid telling Canadians this critical context.

Despite Loreto’s indignation that news outlets might provide needed background to the public, Hamas’ control over all facets of life in Gaza is absolutely germane to the topic. Hamas is not only a genocidal terrorist group which shows zero respect for human life, Israeli and Palestinian alike, but it is also a regime which has deftly used and manipulated news media outlets to promote a particular agenda.

Loreto offered exactly no perspective as to why Hamas’ figures shouldn’t be trusted, ignoring problems ranging from statistical anomalies to Hamas counting 5,000 deaths that occurred from natural causes and counting deceased adults as children and misclassifying men as women. As one researcher wrote, “the (death toll) numbers themselves have lost any claim to validity.”

Not only did she ignore studies and reports which directly contradict her thesis, Loreto both misrepresented supposed evidence in her favour, and ignored criticism of it.

She wrote that “in one discussion paper published by The Lancet in July 2024, researchers…argue that the number of deaths in Gaza could amount to at least 186,000.” It is notable that the “discussion paper” she mentioned is not a peer-reviewed study, but a correspondence akin to a letter to the editor which assumes an apocalyptic post-war scenario, which has no relationship to the actual war in question.

She quoted allegations from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), and wrote that “journalists, of whom at least 170 have been killed,” overlooking the fact that, as revealed by investigative journalist David Collier, many of these so-called “journalists” were members of Palestinian terrorist groups, while others appear not to be journalists at all.

More egregiously, her column tacitly compared Israel’s counter-terrorism operations in Gaza to the Holocaust, writing that “in seeking to link every death to a name, Al Jazeera’s reporting follows a critical tradition,” mentioning efforts to name the millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

By attempting to tie in the Hamas-instigated war to the Nazi extermination of millions of European Jews and other ‘undesirables,’ Loreto has demonstrated that her column is not only an assault on factual accuracy, but on the very precepts of morality.

Despite herculean efforts by anti-Israel activists to defend Hamas propaganda, and misrepresent it as credible, there is simply no way to rehabilitate Hamas’ disinformation in a way that has any relationship to the truth. In her column in The Walrus, Nora Loreto sought to achieve this by ignoring opposing evidence, overlooking criticism of her sources, and in so doing, fundamentally misrepresented the facts. That should tell readers all they need to know about her argument’s credibility.

For The Walrus, a taxpayer-funded publication with a penchant for publishing anti-Israel screeds, Loreto’s column was not an anomaly, but just part of its time-honoured tradition.

UPDATE: In response to our article, and in case there way any doubt about the lack of journalistic neutrality and objectivity of Nora Loreto, here is her response to our alert: