CNN and the BBC ran with fake news, pushed by Hamas, that claimed Sunday that dozens of Palestinians were killed at a U.S.-backed humanitarian aid site in Gaza, according to evidence released later in the day.
As Breitbart News reported, Hamas claimed that more than 30 Palestinian civilians had been fired upon by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) at one of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid distribution sites.
The IDF denied it, and former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also pushed back. As Bennett noted, major Western media outlets — notably CNN and the BBC — had run the story, and given it great prominence, without checking to verify whether the Hamas claimed were in fact accurate.
A source within GHF told Breitbart News that of the six days that the aid effort has been operational, Sunday was the most calm.
After a further investigation, the IDF released a statement:
In recent hours, false reports have been spread, including serious allegations against the IDF regarding fire toward Gazan residents in the area of the humanitarian aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip.
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.
The IDF is cooperating with the American Civil Organization (GHF) and international aid organizations in order to enable the distribution of aid to the Gazan residents — and not to Hamas.
Hamas does everything in its power to undermine food distribution efforts in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that starves and endangers the population in order to preserve its control over the Gaza Strip. As part of its brutal behavior and its attempts to disrupt humanitarian aid, Hamas directly harms the residents of Gaza.
The IDF calls on the media to be cautious with information published by the Hamas terrorist organization, as proven in several previous incidents.
If anyone killed Palestinians near an aid site, it was likely Hamas. The IDF later released drone footage of terrorists firing at civilians trying to obtain aid.
The IDF also released a statement:
IDF drone footage captured earlier today (Sunday) reveals armed and masked individuals hurling rocks and firing at Gazan civilians attempting to collect looted humanitarian aid in southern Khan Yunis.
Hamas is a brutal and murderous terrorist organization that is starving the residents of Gaza. Hamas is doing everything in its power to prevent the successful distribution of food in Gaza.
Bennett also followed up:
The GHF, backed by the Trump administration, is circumventing the United Nations (UN), whose aid is routinely stolen by Hamas, and whose agencies have often been infiltrated by Hamas and its supporters.
The purpose of the Trump administration initiative is to provide aid directly to Palestinians, so that Israel can continue rooting out Hamas from Gaza, absent an agreement to release the remaining Israeli hostages.
A source within the GHF said that it was “extremely disheartening” that Western media outlets had repeated “fabrications without verification.”
The sources added that the GHF had distributed 4.8 million meals in just six days, and blamed the UN and Hamas for spreading fake news about the U.S.-backed effort.
“The U.N. should be working with us,” the sources said, adding that no civilians had been harmed since the GHF effort started.
Many mainstream media outlets have a pattern of credulity when it comes to Hamas claims of atrocities by Israel. One notable example was the supposed death of 500 Palestinians at Al-Ahli Hospital in October 2023.
The hospital was later shown to have been hit by an errant rocket fired by Palestinian terrorists, which hit a parking lot, not the hospital itself, causing far fewer deaths than the hundreds Hamas initially claimed.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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