Before dawn on Tuesday September 10, Israel carried out an airstrike which the IDF said targeted three senior Hamas commanders who embedded themselves among Palestinian civilians in Khan Younis, in the Al-Mawasi area in the southern Gaza Strip.
The Hamas commanders who were eliminated included: Ayman Mabhouh, Samer Ismail Khader Abu Daqqa and Osama Tabash – each held senior positions in Hamas’ armed forces and Israel says that each terrorist was directly involved in massacres of October 7, as well as other attacks in recent weeks and months.
The IDF said that the trio had established a command and control centre in the camp, which had been designated by Israel as a safe zone for Palestinian civilians.
Subsequent to the airstrike, which Israel says was conducted with aerial surveillance, intelligence and precise munitions, Hamas and its Gaza Health Ministry, immediately claimed that “entire families” had been killed, saying that 40 people were slaughtered. For its part, the IDF strenuously denied Hamas’ claims with alacrity, accusing the terror group of conjuring an outright fabrication.
“The numbers published by the Hamas-run Government Information Office in Gaza, which has consistently broadcast lies and false information throughout the war, do not align with the information held by the IDF, the precise munitions used, and the accuracy of the strike,” the Israeli military said which was reported by the Times of Israel.
Hamas then reduced its original inflated number by cutting it down to 19 alleged death and even that number still cannot be substantiated.
In covering this incident, CBC News published a Reuters/AP article which featured a headline which stated the following: “At least 19 killed in Israeli military airstrike on Gaza”.
It’s noteworthy that this headline was presented as an undisputed fact that an Israeli strike killed 19 and was not in attribution to Gaza health authorities, AKA, the Hamas terrorist group.
The article itself said: “Palestinian officials said scores of people had been killed or injured in the strikes. The Gaza Health Ministry, which compiles casualty figures, said hospitals had so far received 19 bodies, and that about 60 people had been wounded. Other victims were still under sand or on roads that rescuers could not reach, it said.”
Again, regarding the 19 alleged bodies, this was a claim made by the Gaza Health Ministry, which the article notes Israel disputes these Palestinian casualty figures.
Accordingly, we filed a complaint with CBC News calling saying that corrective action was warranted.
We are pleased to report that subsequent to our complaint, CBC updated the headline to this article which now states the following: “Palestinians search for survivors after Israeli airstrikes in designated ‘safe zone in Gaza”.
Here’s a before and after comparison:
Let this incident serve as an important reminder of the need to confront Hamas’ lies and misinformation, which far too often get parroted by mainstream media outlets like the CBC.
