Is There a Difference Between Terrorism and Journalism?

"After some 20 people were killed in an Israeli strike on a hospital in Gaza Monday, media zeroed in on their new favourite narrative, implying that because journalists were among the dead, they were targeted."

"Indeed, the headline carried by the Globe and Mail above a Reuters wire story read as if killing journalists was the point of the strike: Multiple Journalists Killed by Israeli Strikes on Gaza's Nasser Hospital."

"It wasn't until several paragraphs into the story that it was reported Israeli troops fired two artillery shells at the hospital, targeting surveillance cameras on the roof'."

"In fact, nearly half of the 197 journalists -- listed by the Committee to Protect Journalists -- killed in Gaza and Lebanon since the October 7 attack, 'worked for media owned by or affiliated with terrorist organizations', according to analysis by American journalist James Kirchuk. These include 'journalists' who worked for the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV, the Islamic Jihad-run Al-Quds Al Youm and the Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar." 

Carson Jerema, National Post 

A combination image shows the journalists killed in Israeli strikes on Nasser Hospital on Aug. 25, 2025: (L-R) Hussam al-Masri, a contractor for Reuters; Mariam Abu Dagga, who the Associated Press said freelanced for the agency; Moaz Abu Taha, a freelance journalist who worked with several news organizations, including occasionally Reuters; Mohammed Salama, who Qatar-based Al Jazeera said worked for the broadcaster; and Ahmed Abu Aziz, taking a selfie in an undated social media image obtained by Reuters. (Stringer/Reuters/Ahmed Abu Aziz via Facebook/Handouts via Reuters)

 

This is a war, one wrought by Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists -- Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP, Fatah -- who raged through southern Israel in their thousands, committing mass murder, rape, wholesale destruction and the abduction of 250 children, infants, women, the elderly, foreign farm workers, leaving devastation in their wake and a traumatized population in Israel. The nation's military response, with the Israel Defense Forces entering Gaza's crowded population enclaves in their search for the terrorists ensconced within the densely-packed civilian areas and deep underground in the Hamas tunnel network, has incited world condemnation.

 

While nations under attack by hostile foreign elements are guaranteed international recognition of the right to respond, protecting its population and searching out their enemies to destroy any further potential for additional attacks, Israel appears the sole exception. Government leaders in the West gasp their condemnation of 'lack of proportionality', when the Israeli hammer nails the terrorists threatening it, even while doing its utmost to minimize collateral damage impacting the civilian population in Gaza. That Hamas willingly sacrifices Palestinian civilians for the greater good of destroying Israel, all are silent.

 

Infamously, Palestinian terrorist groups view their civilian populations as expendable, their value as human shields and as public relations material in Hamas's victimhood agenda of Israel deliberately killing Palestinian children and women, the greater the number the greater the impact on an accusing Western media, unquestioningly repeating victim numbers to the gratification of the terrorists and the horrifying fascination of their readership, Israel becomes the aggressor, and sympathy oozes for Hamas's courage in confronting an 'oppressor'.

 

Context in reporting events is irrelevant to the greater goal of demonizing Israel. Reuters, The Associated Press, lead the way and the BBC, CBC, CNN and others publish what the public omnivorously reads, listens to, and is ultimately fully influenced by. Israel is expected to endure whatever happens to it and its population. Its existential condition surrounded by a death cult nourished by the Islamic Republic of Iran and carried out by its terrorist proxies is its problem, and its alone, for Jews, and Israel have always been left to their own devices in securing their lives.

 

The inflated numbers of dead Palestinian children give way to the tales of starvation, privation and death, photographs of strike-mangled bodies, of children in the throes of death lacking food whose twisted, gaunt bodies reflect chronic inherited diseases, not starvation, but those photographs make good readership bait along with the cover stories -- and deception sells, as long as it involves the demonization of Jews and Israel.

 

Journalists among 20 Palestinians killed in Israeli strike on Gaza hospital – still from video

 

Anas Al-Sharif, one of the purported journalists killed in the August 10 strike reported for Qatari-funded Al Jazeera, while also "an active Hamas military wing operative" who "received a salary from the Hamas terror group" according to Israeli records. Oh well, there's the problem writ large: 'Israeli records'...as in who would believe anything that Israel claims, as opposed to the credibility of everything that Hamas announces...?

 

Even documents attesting to the 'journalist' having joined the Hamas military wing where he "was certified as the team commander" of a "rocket launching squad in northern Gaza", and being listed as a member of the Hamas Nukhba Force, a military group that "led the initial waves of attacks on southern Israel during the October 7, 2023 Hamas onslaught". Documents, so what? Evidence, hard evidence, is it? But ... but ... but ... Hamas certifies on their honour, that he was a journalist, and so does Al Jazeera. Believe Israel? 

 

Al Jazeera, after all, is a credible, creditable news source. Is it not? Well, perhaps it's true they employ many Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives as journalists, why not? They're direct observers and actors, so with their insight and personal experience, doesn't that make them the perfect journalistic specimens? Why should Al Jazeera be put on a hot seat to explain the links between its journalistic credibility and having terrorists on its payroll?  

 

The Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Monday.

Abdallah F.s. Alattar/Anadolu/Getty Images

 

"On the way to Gaza, when they started to touch me and sexually abuse me, I passed out physically and mentally. I couldn’t handle it anymore."

"I had to beg not to be raped, telling them I was on my period. I didn’t know exactly what had been done to my body in those lost minutes when I wasn’t conscious. But my soul already knew: nothing would ever be the same. I was suffering from a fractured jaw, a broken pelvis, ear damage from the explosions, and a burned leg."

"They took us through the back entrance [of the Nasser Hospital] and walked us past all the civilians. In the hospital, there was an area that was closed off and used only by Hamas, with an armed guard. They locked us in a room, where we met a third hostage."

"When it was time to eat, they took a lot of food to their room. They had meat, rice, and vegetables. At the same time, they left us with our meal, which contained sometimes as little as 10 chickpeas or a piece of dry flat bread, which wasn’t always well-cooked."

Ilana Gritzewsky, former Israeli/Gaza hostage 

Ilana Gritzewsky shows the UN Security Council a picture of her and her hostage partner Matan Zangauker on August 27, 2025. (Perry Bindelglass / Israeli Mission to the UN)