Hamas Media Campaigns Vilifying Israel

"Without verification of any source other than Hamas and its collaborators, the New York Times, CNN and Associated Press reported that a number of people seeking to receive humanitarian food boxes from the Gaza Humanitarian Fund were shot or killed by the Israeli Defense Forces."

"These reports were FALSE."

"Reckless and irresponsible reporting by major U.S. news outlets is contributing to the antisemitic climate that has resulted in the murder of two young people at an Israeli Embassy event in Washington and the terror attack on a group of pro-Israel demonstrators in Colorado."

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee 

 

"While we have seen false news reporting about deaths, mass injuries and chaos at our distribution sites, yesterday’s false reporting was the most egregious in terms of outright fabrications and misinformation." "There were no injuries, fatalities or incidents [during the operations on June 1; we have] yet to see any concrete evidence that there was an attack at or near our facility."

Gaza Humanitarian Fund 

 

"Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false."

"[Israel confirmed that it is cooperating with the GHF and international aid organizations] in order to enable the distribution of aid to Gazan residents — and not to Hamas."

Israel Defense Forces

People carry boxes of relief supplies distributed by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation at an aid distribution center in the central Gaza Strip on May 29, 2025. (Eyad BABA / AFP)

 

Hamas has alerted Western media to yet more of its propaganda, that Israel's intentions are not to be trusted. According to Hamas public relations, the Israel-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation food distribution is a ploy to discredit Hamas and UNRWA, serving as a screen enabling the Israel Defense Forces to shoot at starving Palestinian civilians gathering to take advantage of humanitarian aid. Major news outlets picked up the Hamas narrative and ran with it, publishing reports that the IDF shot and killed Palestinians lined up for food distribution in Gaza.

 

Claims that are still in contention, but lacking verifiable sources much less credible eyewitness accounts. But then with Hamas attesting to such distortions of humanitarian aid handouts and Israel's real intentions to once again victimize vulnerable Palestinians, who needs verification? It was only with great reluctance bordering on deliberate disbelief that any legacy media reported on Hamas commandeering aid convoys to take possession of humanitarian aid arranged for by UNRWA to be stockpiled in Hamas warehouses.

 

Humanitarian food aid supplied by the international community responding to the UN's warning of children dying in Gaza for lack of food soon enough turned up in marketplaces throughout Gaza, the boxes clearly marked as humanitarian-supplied food, and selling for steeply marked-up prices, the profits of which are returned to Hamas. This is the same Hamas, needless to say, that deliberately and with great forethought, created a humanitarian disaster when it broke a ceasefire to  send thousands of terrorists into southern Israel on a mission to destroy, plunder and massacre Israelis.

 

The predictable, and planned-for result meant to offer Palestinian civilians the opportunity to sacrifice themselves as living shields for the terrorist groups ensconced among them, headquartered in hospitals, in schools, and endless miles of underground tunnels criss-crossing Gaza to stockpile weapons and create bases for the tens of thousands of Palestinians dedicated -- under the auspices of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, and other terrorist groups -- to the destruction of Israel.

 

Still from Video released by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation shows crowds of Palestinians arriving at the aid site on Sunday morning as tracer fire is seen in the sky above.

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation

 

First hand accounts of the Hamas claims and drone footage raised doubts about the initial reporting more or less quoting Hamas without the usual journalistic integrity of first checking for facts. Walking back its headlines, the BBC admitted the video they cited was unrelated to any aid distribution site. "The early versions fell short of Washington Post standards of fairness and should not have been published in that form", the WP reported. The Telegram stated: "Hamas is using the efforts to bring humanitarian aid to Palestinians to further its media campaign against Israel".

 

"We don't take the word of Hamas with total truth ... unlike the BBC. I suggest that journalists who actually care about the truth do the same", stated White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. The United Nations no longer operates in Gaza owing to the revelations of its complicity, its failure to condemn the October 7 atrocities and its decades of turning a blind eye to the terror tunnels Hamas built under UNRWA buildings and their stockpiling of rockets in UNRWA schools.  

"We've never seen anything like this before (media) verbal pogrom against Israel and the Jews."

"Its unique construction from falsehoods ... tells us something pathological is going on here."

British columnist Melanie Phillips  

Displaced Palestinians receive food packages from a US-backed foundation pledging to distribute humanitarian aid in western Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on May 27, 2025. (AFP)

 

"Reports from major news outlets over the weekend not only failed journalistic standards but bordered on full-throated endorsement of terrorist propaganda."

"Hamas desires to return the aid process to a United Nations-centric effort that it has spent years co-opting and monetizing for its own gain."

"Major media outlets are now directly aiding Hamas in perpetuating a false narrative that the new aid process is a form of violence against Palestinians, rather than a lifeline free from the terror group’s extortion."

Tyler Stapleton, Director of Congressional Relations, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Action