In an Apr. 4, 2026, video and article entitled “Palestinian babies separated from parents at start of war, reunited after 2 years,” ABC turned what should have been a bittersweet human-interest story into terror denial and outright lies about Israel.
Three co-authors collaborated on the article: Zoe Magee, Dragana Jovanovic and Diaa Ostaz, who previously falsely depicted child Osama Al-Raqab, as a starvation victim, ignoring the child’s pre-existing genetic conditions.
Carefully erasing any Palestinian responsibility for the war, the article elliptically referred to the “start of Israel-Hamas war in 2023” while skipping over Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion and atrocities which kicked off the war. By contrast, the ABC journalists had no trouble citing alleged Israeli culpability, describing the Al-Shifa hospital neonatal unit as “running out of fuel and oxygen, cut off by the Israeli army, which had encircled the hospital, saying that Hamas had a hidden command center in its precincts, something both Hamas medical teams there strongly denied.” [Note, the video says “both Hamas and medical teams…”]
The three ABC authors, however, did not even entertain the possibility that Hamas had embedded itself within Al-Shifa. Despite ABC News having reported on Nov. 14, 2023, that the U.S. had intelligence showing Hamas had used Al-Shifa Hospital (and other hospitals) and the tunnels underneath “to conceal and [support] their military operations and to hold hostages,” this was not included in the Apr. 4 report. The authors omitted that Hamas terrorists were sheltering in Al-Shifa, using it for and control purposes and as a weapons depot in November 2023.
Al-Shifa Hospital from above
Hamas terror complex below
Hamas hides behind hospitals
And here’s the drone footage
That incontrovertibly proves it
Hamas wages war from hospitals
Will the world condemn Hamas? pic.twitter.com/xvvqErP0t1— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 22, 2023
The article quoted two physicians. Plastic surgeon Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati has served as a Hamas mouthpiece, sympathizer, and propagandist. Dr. Ahmed Al-Farra is a pro-Hamas pediatrician who falsified the claim that Israel had banned entry of baby formula into Gaza.
Mokhallalati, who was touted by the network as “one of the few doctors who remained at Al-Shifa throughout the Israeli siege,” told the ABC News journalists that the babies “were meant to die without incubators, without oxygen, without water . . .”
Indeed, Mokhallalati was working in Al-Shifa Hospital in November 2023, during which time Hamas terrorists murdered Israeli hostage Cpl. Noa Marciano inside Al-Shifa Hospital. He was working there in mid-November, during the time the IDF had already found weapons and other “terror infrastructure” within the hospital and “saw concrete evidence” Hamas was using the hospital as terror headquarters. There is almost no chance Mokhallalati did not see – or at least know – Hamas terrorists operated inside the hospital.
The Times of Israel reported on both a UK physician and an Italian journalist having knowledge of Hamas’ presence at Al-Shifa. The doctor, who previously worked at the hospital, confirmed there were certain areas of the hospital where he could not go without being shot. He described an “air of paranoia,” noting that hospital staff were more fearful of Hamas persecution, by orders of magnitude, than they were of possible Israeli airstrikes.
The Italian journalist relayed that he once got lost in an underground floor of Al-Shifa, where two heavily armed Hamas members guarding a security door told him to get out. Additionally, several sources confirmed to the journalist that Hamas’ command and control center – also a one-time hiding spot for former (now deceased) Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh – was located under Al-Shifa Hospital.
ABC News’ egregious failure to provide any indication as to why the Israeli military targeted Al-Shifa, compelling the babies’ evacuation, is journalistic dereliction. The failure to report Hamas’ and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s human shield strategy endangering the patients of Al-Shifa Hospital is anti-Israel narrative crafting, not factual news reporting.
Finally, ABC News completely omitted the IDF’s role in evacuating the babies from Al-Shifa Hospital to Egypt, reporting only that the babies “were rescued after the WHO and the Palestinian Red Crescent were given access to the hospital.” In actuality, the IDF helped facilitate the evacuation of the babies, using incubators provided by Israel.
The IDF, in cooperation with COGAT, helped facilitate the safe evacuation of newborn babies from the Shifa Hospital to receive medical treatment in Egypt.
IDF teams on the ground assisted UN teams in the evacuation using incubators provided by Israel.
We will continue to… pic.twitter.com/8Vobkjw5OT
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 20, 2023
Moreover, prior to the eventual evacuation, Israel said it attempted to evacuate the babies and leave 300 liters of fuel to power emergency generators, but Hamas had blocked the offers.
ABC News could have presented a straightforward human-interest story about how a mother and newborn were separated during a terrible war, exploring both the happiness and challenges of their reunion two and a half years later.
Instead, it used the story as a vehicle for omissions, distortions, and the outright whitewashing of Hamas’ war crime exploiting Al-Shifa’s civilian patients.