Hamas-linked Associated Press Whitewashes Hamas’ Responsibility for Suffering of Gaza Children

In the aftermath of the bombing of the Associated Press offices in Gaza, which also housed Hamas, there were two possibilities regarding AP. One was that they really didn’t know Hamas was in the building, in which case they were the worst reporters on the planet. Or else AP knew Hamas was there, and was fine with it, which is in line with its general editorial tendency to whitewash jihad violence and demonize Israel. And here we go again.

Trauma apparent, Hamas hidden: AP’s portraits of Gaza kids

by Tamar Sternthal, JNS, July 22, 2021:

(July 22, 2021 / JNS) The Associated Press’ photo essay “War’s trauma apparent in portraits of Gazan children,” published on Wednesday, features the personal stories of a number of Gaza children traumatized by Hamas’s 11-day conflict with Israel in May. The essay is egregiously partisan and defamatory, and highly reminiscent of The New York Times’ “They Were Only Children” front-page item last month.

Like their colleagues at the Times, AP’s Aya Batrawy and Felipe Dana identify Israel as being virtually solely responsible for the children’s trauma, all but ignoring Hamas’s role in the tragedies: “Altogether, 66 children were killed in the fourth war on the Gaza Strip — most from precision-guided Israeli bombs, though in one incident Israel alleges a family was killed by Hamas rockets that fell short of their target.”

“Where when war erupts, there is no safe place,” the AP article states, providing no indication whatsoever that Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza fire at Israel from densely populated neighborhoods. Hamas also stores weaponry among civilians and houses its command offices in residential areas, a fact acknowledged by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Moreover, while Hamas has built hundreds of kilometers of well-fortified tunnels for its fighters, including under civilian homes, it has not provided any shelters for its civilian population. All of this information is highly relevant to a report on the lack of safe places for Gaza’s population, and yet AP omits it.

By citing “precision-guided Israeli bombs” while ignoring the Hamas sites that Israel was targeting when some of these children were killed, AP implies that Israel committed a heinous war crime: targeting children with precision bombs.

In addition, contrary to AP’s claim that “in one incident” Israel “alleges” a Hamas rocket was responsible for killing Gaza’s children, Israel has said that 680 misfired rockets launched by Gaza terrorists killed 10 children in at least twoseparate incidents, and has also pointed to additional incidents in which fatalities of minors likely were caused by misfired rockets. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center detailed casualties inflicted on May 10 by misfired rockets hitting the Al-Omari Mosque in Jabalia and the al-Masri home in Beit Hanoun….

Like the Times story before it, the AP article also fails to acknowledge that some of the minors killed were members of terror organizations, such as 17-year-old Khaled al-Qanau, and Muhammad Suleiman, 15….