Israel wrongly accused of killing Gazan baby, and a minute’s silence to help Hamas at Cannes film festival

May 16, 2018

HAMAS, ISLAMIC JIHAD BOAST: MANY OF GAZA DEAD WERE OURS

A Hamas press release yesterday (photo above), proclaiming the deaths of 10 members of its so-called military wing in gun battles with Israeli forces on Monday. Today a senior Hamas spokesperson went further, and said that 50 of the 62 dead this week in Gaza were its militants.

 

TRULY DISGRACEFUL COVERAGE

[Notes by Tom Gross]

The coverage in European and some American media of events in Gaza this week has been riddled with inaccuracies, misleading information and highly inflammatory rhetoric. Interestingly, many media in Arab countries, fully aware of Hamas propaganda methods (the so-called “Pallywood”), have been less willing to believe Palestinian claims than the gullible western media. “Nakba day” protests in the West Bank have also been very muted.

Not mentioned in most western media today: Yesterday afternoon Israel named 24 of the 62 Gazans reported killed while trying to storm the Israeli border on Monday, as known terrorists and said they were still investigating the others.

A senior Hamas spokesperson today went further and acknowledged that 50 of the 62 dead were its militants. Many had assault weapons when they died in clashes with Israel.

In Arabic from Hamas-affiliated TV here.

The western media and European politicians misleadingly claimed that the dead were all or almost all peaceful civilians, whereas many or most were well-armed fighting age men affiliated to the armed wings of terror organizations.

 

A MINUTE’S SILENCE TO HELP HAMAS AT THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

While many European governments and politicians and journalists raged against Israel, governments elsewhere defended Israel.

For example, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull clearly blamed Hamas for the loss of life in Gaza. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop added, “We recognize that Israel needs to protect its population.... Australia urges Palestinian protesters to refrain from violence and attempting to enter into Israeli territory.”

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley told the Security Council yesterday that Hamas, backed by Iran, had incited the violence by urging protesters, many armed, over loudspeakers to burst through the border fence. “I ask my colleagues here in the Security Council: Who among us would accept this type of activity on your border? No one would. No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has.”

Meanwhile the UN took the very rare step of holding a minute’s silence for the Gaza dead yesterday. A minute’s silence for the Gaza dead was also held by left-wing filmmakers at the Cannes Film festival yesterday.

[Breaking news: BBC World News has just now reported on the Hamas admission that most of the dead were its militants, but the BBC have not yet apologized for their disgraceful “fake news” reports against Israel in recent days.]

This is all very reminiscent of Jeningrad.

 

IRANIAN-FINANCED ISLAMIC JIHAD LAUDS ITS GAZA ‘MARTYRS’

On posters displayed in Gaza yesterda,y another smaller Palestinian terror group, the Iranian government-financed and controlled Islamic Jihad, pronounced these three men (above), who died on Monday in gun battles with Israeli forces as they tried to storm into Israel across the border in Khan Younis, as members of its Saraya al-Quds military wing.

Here is their death notice from the Islamic Jihad website.

As “martyrs” their families will now receive large sums of money every month from European government donated aid to the Palestinian Authority.

 

FAKE NEWS ABOUT ISRAEL KILLING BABY

Many western media have run prominent headlines claiming, or strongly implying, that the IDF killed a Palestinian baby in the Gaza riots this week.

For example, a Financial Times headline this morning reads: “Tragic baby Leyla symbolises Gaza’s life and death struggle.”

Today’s headlines come despite the fact that doctors in Gaza yesterday told the Associated Press that the baby in question had a pre-existing condition from which she died and the baby’s death had nothing to do with Monday’s border riots. This AP report notwithstanding, other media continue to count her in the Gaza riot death toll

For example, pictured above, a piece from today’s British tabloid the Daily Express, a paper that rarely covers foreign news, but repeats anti-Israeli propaganda virtually verbatim in this piece.

It is hardly surprising if such vicious coverage, repeated by politicians on the floor of the House of Commons on Monday, further fuels anti-Semitic attacks in Britain, already running at postwar record highs.

 

JESUS IN GAZA

This photo taken by a Palestinian AFP photographer in Gaza, is being widely shared on Facebook, juxtaposed with the image of Michelangelo’s Pieta, the famous artwork that shows the Virgin Mary holding Jesus’ body

Many others have claimed that the picture is staged as part of the long standing collaboration between news agencies in Gaza and Hamas. A person, presumably running to get medical help for his injured friend, appears to stop to allow a photographer to take his picture.

See also:

* The Case of Reuters
* My short interview about the Al-Dura controversy has been watched 370,000 times.

 

WHY DOES THE BRITISH MEDIA SCARE PEOPLE ABOUT ISRAEL BUT NOT ABOUT FRANCE?

Here is a short interview with me from Sunday on Israel Channel 10 news. It was broadcast before the current Gaza violence but remains true of Jerusalem about which the British media and foreign office continue to agitate despite the fact there has been virtually no serious violence there recently.

As I point out in the interview, over 250 people have been killed in France in terror attacks over the last three years, and dozens in terror attacks in Belgium, Barcelona, Berlin, Toronto and elsewhere. Thousands have died in mass shootings in America.

It is not a particularly good interview but you may wish to watch it.

 

NOT ALL BAD IN GAZA

A reminder that Gaza has a prosperous side too (which is why life expectancy there is five years higher than the world average, and higher than most Arab countries, and than in parts of Glasgow).

If you haven’t read it, you may wish to read this piece published earlier this year by The Spectator on the prosperous aspects of the economic situation in Gaza and the Al-Jazeera video that accompanies it.

Gaza’s prosperous side, that the Arab media show but the western media won’t

***

See also this analysis of Gazans wrongly reported in the New York Times as being civilians, who died in March and April riots on the Gaza-Israel border.

See also: Exodus From Gaza

 

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All notes and summaries copyright © Tom Gross. All rights reserved.