In a situation which would be considered unimaginable not long ago, the assertions of Hamas, a genocidal Islamic terrorist organization, have been frequently parroted by news media outlets as truth, while Israeli statements – if they are even quoted at all – are never treated with the same credibility.

A December 19 article by Nidal Al-Mugrabi, a senior correspondent at Thomson Reuters newswire was published by CBC News, The Globe and Mail and on the newswire’s website.

In the article entitled: “Houses, camp in Gaza City hit by deadly Israeli airstrikes as ceasefire talks continue,” Al-Mugrabi reported that “Israel’s campaign (in Gaza) has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians.” This statement entirely ignored the one and only source of all casualty claims in Gaza – Hamas, and its so-called “Gaza Ministry of Health,” presenting the terrorist group’s assertions, not as unverified statements, but as incontrovertible truth.

But when it comes to Israel, the double standard becomes apparent immediately. The article told readers that “Israel started its air and ground assault on Gaza after Hamas-led fighters attacked Israeli communities in October 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies,” adding that “Israel says about 100 hostages are still being held…”

In any other circumstance, this overt bias in reporting would be considered simply sloppy journalism. But in this case, treating a terrorist group’s statements as not just equal to, but tacitly superior to, assertions from a liberal democratic state is a moral outrage.

Multiple sources are quoted in the article, from a Gazan to two vocally anti-Israel non-governmental organizations, Doctors without Borders and Human Rights Watch, while Israeli sources are only ever paraphrased, and not quoted directly a single time.

The article reported that “a report published by Doctors Without Borders on Thursday said there were clear signs of ethnic cleansing in Israel’s offensive as Palestinians were forcibly displaced and bombed,” before quoting the group extensively.

Later, the article added that “on Thursday, Human Rights Watch said Israel had killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water, which it says legally amounts to acts of genocide and extermination.”

It is unclear by what metrics Thomson Reuters was determining which groups to give a platform to in reporting. Only six days before the article was published, Henry Jackson Society, a highly-respected British thinktank, conducted a comprehensive analysis of Hamas’ casualty claims from Gaza, revealing that, among other findings, thousands of natural deaths were attributed by the group to Israeli strikes, that women were counted as men, adults were counted as children, and so on.

However, Thomson Reuters made no mention of that report, either in this December 19 article or elsewhere, and in so doing, gave an accounting of the latest updates in the Hamas-Israel war that are presented overwhelmingly from an anti-Israel angle, while significantly downplaying Israel’s positions.

In other articles about the Hamas-Israel war, Al-Mughrabi has reported Hamas’ unverified, statistically-implausible and debunked death toll claims as fact, yet he has continued to do so. It’s time that Canadian news media outlets hold the Thomson Reuters newswire accountable for this deeply flawed reporting.