Jiljilya, 2015. (credit: עדירל, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
In CNN’s world, the West Bank is a simple place: Jews must be proven innocent, and Palestinians must be proven guilty.
A May 13, 2026, broadcast perfectly illustrated the outlet’s flawed worldview and its broader pattern of repeating unsubstantiated, one-sided reports in the region.
CNN echoed claims from the Israeli NGO, B’Tselem, and Palestinian sources alleging that Israeli settlers, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, assaulted Palestinian residents in the town of Jiljilya in Palestinian Authority-run Area A and stole a flock of sheep in their joint “raid.”
Since Area A is under full Palestinian Authority security control and strictly off-limits to Israelis, the civilians’ illegal entry forced the IDF into a high-risk emergency extraction, endangering the soldiers as well as the residents.
During the incident, a 16-year-old Palestinian was killed and several others were wounded. CNN reported the local mayor’s claim that settlers killed the teen; however, the Israeli public broadcaster KAN reported that soldiers killed him. The IDF stated that troops had fired at stone-throwers.
A Selectively Edited IDF Statement
In presenting this story, “Isa Soares Tonight” aired a truncated version of the IDF’s response. Soares told her audience:
The IDF says it acted to prevent confrontation when settlers enter the town. It says quote, violent riot developed, including stone throwing. So soldiers opened fire toward what it called instigators.
This edit omitted critical context from the full IDF statement, posted on its official Hebrew X account, that offers a contrary explanation of the events.
A screenshot of the IDF’s statement in English from the institution’s official Telegram group regarding their entry into Jiljilya, May 13, 2026.
The complete statement noted that Israeli civilians entered the town only after Palestinians allegedly stole sheep from an Israeli outpost in Area A. The military stated it dispatched forces specifically to extract the civilians and retrieve the stolen property. Crucially, the IDF reported that troops arrested several suspects involved in the initial theft and handed them over to the police. The broadcast also excluded the IDF’s internal labeling of the settlers’ origin point as an “illegal outpost.”
This omission allowed CNN to portray the military and the settlers as a unified, state-sanctioned front, rather than acknowledging that the IDF views the settlers’ actions and residence as a violation of Israeli law.
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, reporting on the same event, did display the portion of the IDF statement noting the initial theft. However, Diamond explicitly countered the IDF’s account by asserting there is “no evidence” that Palestinians stole the sheep.
While demanding evidence for the military’s claims, Diamond’s report provided no evidence to substantiate the allegation that Israeli settlers stole the sheep, highlighting a clear editorial double standard. Furthermore, his report failed to include the final part of the military’s statement regarding the actual arrest of suspects.
Exclusion of any local Israeli sources
The broadcasts also excluded local Israeli sources that contradicted the overarching “settler violence” narrative. Both the Binyamin Regional Council and the local branch of Rescuers Without Borders reported that local Arabs stole approximately 120 sheep from the Tzur Levavi farm. The council stated (translated from Hebrew):
The settlement farms in Binyamin, Judea, and Samaria face terrorism time and again in the form of attempted robberies… Afterwards, these same actors try to distort reality and portray the settlers as the ones enacting “settler violence.”
When faced with directly conflicting accounts, standard journalistic practice requires compelling evidence before presenting one side’s claims as fact. Neither CNN nor B’Tselem provided video or photographic evidence that settlers stole the herd; the broadcast only showed Israelis and soldiers exiting Jiljilya with the sheep. Accusing the Israeli military of covering up a crime and aiding a pillaging operation requires definitive proof. CNN provided none.
By framing the IDF’s presence primarily as an exceptional military infiltration to aid settlers, the network also omitted standard IDF operational context. According to standing IDF policy, if an Israeli national illegally enters Area A, the military intervenes to prevent violence or a lynching. For instance, on Dec. 30, 2021, the IDF and Israel Police extracted a father and son who illegally entered Qalqilya to retrieve a stolen motorbike and faced a mob attack. Afterward, authorities emphasized the illegality of the citizens’ actions in a statement and summoned the pair for questioning.
Relying solely on groups like B’Tselem without independent verification is problematic. As CAMERA has documented, the NGO routinely pads its statistics on Palestinians killed in “settler attacks” by including terrorists killed while attempting to murder Israelis.
A Pattern of Repeating Unsubstantiated One-Sided Claims
Just three weeks earlier, CNN relied exclusively on Palestinian sources to claim Carmel’s Israeli residents erected a fence to block Palestinian children from attending school, entirely omitting the Israeli perspective or any potential Palestinian wrongdoing.
Similarly, in February, CNN demonstrated its shallow historical understanding of the conflict by describing “Palestinian citizens of Israel” as descendants of those “who were not expelled or forced to flee their homes when Israel was established in 1948.” They conveniently forgot to mention that much of the local Arab population did not sit out the fighting but actively supported five invading Arab armies aiming to destroy the new state.
By consistently adopting a single narrative and applying disparate standards for evidence, CNN fails to hold Palestinians to account. Viewers rely on international news outlets to investigate conflicting claims, not to advance uncorroborated storylines that lack fundamental evidentiary support.