(Photo by Billy Hicks, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
For the second year in a row, CAMERA completed a record-breaking year prompting corrections in mainstream news coverage of Israel and the Middle East. The organization’s record 245 English, Arabic and Hebrew news media corrections in 2022 include a New York Times editor’s note clarifying that contrary to Raja Abdulrahim’s story about the collapse of Gaza’s fishing industry under the Israeli blockade, the sector has in fact significantly increased its catch; an acknowledgement by MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin that errant Palestinian rockets were actually responsible for many of the 49 Gazan fatalities which he had blamed on Israel; the deletion of a baseless claim in the Daily Telegraph suggesting that then Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett pressured Ukraine to make concessions to Russia; an amended AP headline after the initial version completely erased a Palestinian firebomb attack; and scores of BBC Arabic corrections about a slew of misrepresentations, including mischaracterizations of Israeli communities within Israel’s internationally-recognized boundaries as “settlements” and the delegitimization of all Israelis as “settlers,” references to Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital, false claims about Jews entering the Al-Aqsa mosque, and much more.
The final CAMERA-prompted corrections in the last days of 2022 were at Reuters, which on Dec. 29 set the record straight after English and Arabic articles falsely referred to the Mavi Marmara as an “aid ship.” The passengers on that infamous 2010 voyage carried arms not aid, and the “Turkish citizens” used that weaponry to attack Israeli soldiers protecting Israel’s legal naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The AFP caption falsely reporting Abu Hmeid died “in Israeli prison,” subsequently corrected thanks to CAMERA’s Israel office
CAMERA rolls straight into 2023 without any pause in its relentless activity setting the record straight; today the organization’s Israel office prompted corrections of Dec. 27 Agence France Presse captions (screenshots at left) which had wrongly reported that convicted terrorist Nasser Abu Hmeid (also spelled Abu Hamed) “died earlier while in Israeli prison.” In fact, as CAMERA-prompted corrections at Reuters, The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz made clear last month, he died at Asaf Harofeh, also known as the Yitzhak Shamir Medical Center, a regular hospital serving the Israeli public in the Tel Aviv area.
A second AFP caption erroneously reporting Abu Hmeid died “in Israeli prison,” also corrected due to CAMERA’s efforts
In response to CAMERA’s persistent communication with AFP, editors commendably amended the captions today, acknowledging that Abu Hmeid died in an Israeli hospital from cancer and adding that he was serving time for carrying out deadly attacks. The corrected captions now state:
A senior Fatah figure, Nasser Abu Hamid, died from cancer in hospital on December 20 while in Israeli custody. He was serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison for his participation in deadly attacks during the second intifada.
An improved AFP caption prompted by CAMERA today
Separately, CAMERA’s Israel office today prompted correction of an AFP news story which had erroneously promoted Maj. Gen. Oded Basiuk as “the head of the Israel Defense Forces” (“Israeli strike on Damascus airport kills 4 fighters: monitor”).
Oded Basiuk is head of the IDF operations directorate, not the head of Israel’s military. The IDF’s outgoing IDF Chief of Staff is Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi. He is soon to be replaced 
by Maj. Gen. Herzl Halevi. Following CAMERA’s communication with AFP, the wire service amended the article to accurately refer to Basiuk as “the head of the Israel Defense Forces Operations Directorate.”