AP Improves Coverage After Downplaying Hezbollah Attacks on Israeli Civilians, Obscuring Terrorist Fatalities

September 23, 2024

Following communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, the Associated Press yesterday improved several elements in its main story on fighting between Israel and Hezbollah (“Hezbollah hits back with more than 100 rockets across a wider and deeper area of Israel,” Sept. 22).

The earlier copy by Natalie Melzer and Kareem Chehayeb, archived here, downplayed the threats Israeli civilians face from Hezbollah and also obscured Hezbollah fatalities.

Yesterday, CAMERA contacted the Associated Press, pointing out that the article’s second paragraph, in the reporters’ own voice, wrongly claimed: “The rocket barrage overnight set off air raid sirens across northern Israel, sending thousands of people scrambling into shelters.” (Emphasis added.)

In fact, hundreds of thousands of Israelis were forced to seek shelter from Hezbollah attacks overnight Sept. 22. The article buried this information seven paragraphs later, quoting an IDF spokesperson: “Hundreds of thousands of civilians have come under fire across a lot of northern Isreal [sic].” By attributing the higher figure (hundreds of thousands) to the Israeli military and citing a much lower figure (thousands) more prominently and using the reporters’ voice, AP signaled to readers that the credible figure is the one that the news service supplied, and not the one cited by the Israeli military spokesman.

Editors agreed with CAMERA that revision was in order and AP’s updated article now correctly reports: “Air raid sirens across northern Israel sent hundreds of thousands of people scrambling into shelters.”

CAMERA also held AP to task for the second paragraph’s patently falsely claim that Hezbollah’s “previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets.”

In fact, civilian communities across Israel’s north including Kiryat Shemona, Safed, Metulla, Margalliyot, Nahariya, Akko, Rosh HaNikra and so many more have faced relentless Hezbollah attacks since Oct. 8. The Institute for National Security Studies provides a graphic which demonstrates the intensity and breadth of Hezbollah attacks on Israeli communities. Scroll down on the INSS site to “Hezbollah Attacks Against Israel” to view the  “Israel-Lebanon Border: Targets Attacked by Hezbollah” graphic, also at left. 

Moreover, Hezbollah’s cross-border rocket, drone and anti-tank missile attacks have killed more civilians (26) than soldiers (22).

Among the 26 civilian fatalites are 12 Druze children, ages 10-16, killed by a Hezbollah rocket which slammed into a soccer field in the Israeli Druze town of Majdal Shams July 27. Strikingly, the article about Hezbollah “hit[ting] back” ignores Hezbollah’s devastating attack on children playing in a soccer field. (No soldiers were killed in that attack.)

In contrast, the article repeatedly highlighted the relatively few children killed in Israeli attacks targeting Hezbollah terrorists. Thus, the article stated: 

The [Hezbollah] barrage came after an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on Friday killed at least 45 people, including one of Hezbollah’s top leaders as well as women and children.

Significantly, Israel’s Sept. 20 strike in Beirut did not kill just “one” Hezbollah top leader. According to Hezbollah’s own admission, Hezbollah has so far admitted to losing 16 senior members in the Friday airstrike.

A home in Kiryat Shemona hit by a Hezbollah rocket Oct. 29, 2023 (Photo courtesy of Kiryat Shemona municipality)

Further down, the article reiterated the Lebanese children and women deaths, while ignoring the mass Hezbollah fatalities: ‘Lebanese authorities say at least seven women and three children were killed in Friday’s airstrike and that dozens more were wounded.” Meanwhile, the article’s earlier versions failed to give any indication that Hezbollah lost any fighters aside from top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Akil.

AP likewise amplified child fatalities while obscuring Hezbollah losses in last week’s walkie-talkie and beeper attacks, citing the “killing of at least 37 people — including two children.” Again, the vast majority of fatalities were Hezbollah members, but AP failed to note them at all, singling out the relatively small number of child fatalities.

Reflecting these concerns, AP editors deleted the false claim that previous Hamas barrages “had mainly been aimed at military targets.” In addition, editors revised the misleading initial account of the Beirut strike – fatalities, AP had said, included “one of Hezbollah’s top leaders as well as women and children” – which had erased more than dozen Hezbollah fatalities. The amended copy now acknowledges that the 45 fatalities included “Ibrahim Akil, one of Hezbollah’s top leaders, several other fighters, and women and children.” (Emphasis added.)

The updated copy, with the three noteworthy improvements, replaced the problematic version at secondary media outlets including Huffington Post and The Atlanta-Journal Constitution. In addition, the improved copy appears on countless news sites, underscoring the value of CAMERA’s vital work prompting improvement of wire service stories during the same news cycle that they appear. CAMERA continues to contact individual news outlets which still carry AP’s problematic earlier report, such as CBC, Las Vegas Sun, and Porterville Recorder (Rhode Island). Stay tuned for updates about more corrections.

See also “Reuters Corrects After Underreporting Number of Israelis Forced to Shelters“

Sept. 23 Update, 10:15 am ET: Porterville Recorder Corrects

After the publication of this post and CAMERA's correspondence with editors, The Porterville Recorder (Rhode Island) updated its copy, correcting the number of Israelis forced to find shelter and deleting the false claim that Hezbollah's barrages have previously mostly aimed at military targets.

Sept. 24 Update: Las Vegas Sun Deletes the Article

The Las Vegas Sun has entirely removed the article from its site.

Sept. 29 Update: CBC Stands By Earlier AP Article, Refuses to Correct

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has refused to replaced the earlier flawed AP story with the wire service's updated and amended version, maintaining that "wire stories reporting on developing events may evolve through the day. The evolution may include new language, new details, different context, etc." and concluding that "the version published by CBC News is neither inaccurate nor misleading."

Contrary to CBC's rationale for not correcting, the noteworthy improvements that AP introduced did not relate to unfolding developments or newly revealed data, but to information that was already well established before the publication of its faulty reporting. The problematic version (archived here) that CAMERA flagged on AP's site, and about which we communicated with the AP Jerusalem bureau Sept. 22, was time stamped as last updated that day at 12:34 PM Israel time (GMT +3).

First, that report, which is identical to what still appears on CBC's site, wrongly claimed that Hezbollah's rocket attack sent "thousands of people scrambling into shelters." More than five hours before this inaccurate reporting, the Israeli military had already reported that "Hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians spent their night hiding in bomb shelters." Moreover, it wasn't necessary to take the military's word for it; the figure could be easily verified by checking the population figures for the localities where the warning siren sounded, and that information was available in real time.

Second, the fact that Hezbollah barrages had been raining down on civilian communities for the last year clearly is completely unchanged by the day's developing events.

Third, at least a full day before AP misleadingly reported that just "one of Hezbollah's top leaders" was among the 45 fatalities in Israel's Sept. 20 airstrike on Beirut, Hezbollah had already acknowledged that it lost 16 fighters. As CNN reported on Sept. 21: "In total, Hezbollah confirmed the deaths of at least 16 of its operatives in the strike . . . "

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