AP Cites ‘Military Action’ In Deadly School Strike, Ignores Errant Hamas Rockets

The Associated Press has spent the last day swerving and ducking the facts about lives cut short by Hamas — Palestinian and Israeli alike.

More than 12 hours after the Israeli military announced that an errant Hamas rocket hit a Khan Younis school, killing two and injuring several, the Associated Press has yet to amend its reporting from early today citing unspecified “military action” as the culprit.

In “Israel-Hamas war latest: Netanyahu address Congress and vows to achieve ‘total victory,’” AP reported today (5:36 am GMT):

The United Nations says two schools in southern Khan Younis were hit during military action, killing and injuring Palestinians sheltering inside.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Wednesday that the U.N. World Health Organization and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society were able to evacuate six wounded people to the International Medical Corp field hospital along with the bodies of two people killed in the shelters.

Dujarric said U.N. humanitarian staff report that intense hostilities and large-scale displacement is continuing in Khan Younis following Israel’s evacuation order. Most people are moving into a smaller, already overcrowded area labeled by the Israelis as a “humanitarian zone,” he said.

Most readers would reasonably conclude from these paragraphs that Israeli military activity was responsible for the fatalities. Yet, several hours later, the Israel Defense Forces posted on X, formerly Twitter, revealing that Hamas launched rockets from a humanitarian area in Khan Younis fell short, hitting the Al’-Qarara school.

As Times of Israel reported nearly 12 hours prior to this writing (“Hamas rockets fell short and hit UNRWA-run school in Gaza’s Khan Younis, says IDF“):

Rockets launched by Hamas yesterday from the Israeli-designated humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip struck a United Nations-run school in Khan Younis, killing and wounding Palestinians, the IDF says.

According to the IDF, it received reports from international aid organizations that two civilians were killed and several more were wounded after the rockets struck UNRWA’s Al-Qarara school.

The IDF says the rockets were fired by Hamas from the humanitarian zone, but failed to cross the border into Israel, falling short on the school in Khan Younis.

In a move coordinated by COGAT and the World Health Organization, the wounded Palestinians were taken to a field hospital run by the International Medical Corps in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, the IDF adds.

In a separate AP article last updated this morning, the news agency engaged in contortions to deflect  Hamas responsibility for the killing of Israeli babies which has been long verified. Thus, in their article entitled “In fiery speech to Congress, Netanyahu vows ‘total victory’ in Gaza and denounces US protesters,” Ellen Knickmeyer, Farnoush Amiri and Ashraf Khalil prevaricate that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu “accused American protesters of the war of standing with the militants who he said killed babies.” (Emphasis added.)

Completely irrespective of Netanyahu’s statement, at least two babies were most definitely killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre: Mila Cohen (10 months, shot in the arms of her mother) and Na’amma Abu Rashad. Terrorists shot her pregnant mother in the stomach and she was born during an emergency surgery, surviving just one day. In addition, toddler Omer Siman Tov was murdered alongside his entire family in their safe room. He was 2.

The same news story AP which inappropriately attributed Hamas’ killing of babies to Netanyahu, signalling that the information is questionable at best, inappropriately excluded attribution when it came to Hamas’ highly questionable and unverified fatality figures.

Tlaib is one of Netanyahu’s most strident critics in Congress and was censured for her comments last year against the Israel-Hamas war, which has killed more than 39,000 in Gaza,” the AP reporters stated as fact without attribution to Hamas’ Ministry of Health, as if their own agency’s reporting hadn’t just weeks ago published an investigation casting further doubts on the credibility of Hamas-supplied fatality figures. (Emphasis added.)

See also “AP’s Selective Inability to Verify Information

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