It’s mid-November, and it’s freezing cold! In New York, London, and . . . Gaza?
That’s what reporters for one major American news organization were writing and broadcasting.
CAMERA invited NBC News to correct two articles by London-based reporters: Alexander Smith’s Nov. 17, 2025 piece, “Trump’s Gaza plan faces major test at U.N. Security Council vote,” and Freddie Clayton’s Nov. 16, 2025 report, “Heavy rain floods camp in Gaza, worsening conditions for displaced Palestinians.” In them, Mr. Smith described how Palestinians were suffering from “flooding at the onset of a bitter winter…” while Mr. Clayton claimed there were “freezing families” suffering from storms that “arrived as cold weather set in” (our emphasis supplied).
However, according to multiple weather monitoring sites, the temperature has not dropped below 58 degrees Fahrenheit in Gaza in recent weeks. Indeed, on the day referred to by Clayton, Saturday, Nov. 15, there was a high of 73 and a low of 61 degrees Fahrenheit, according to The Weather Channel. This weekend, temperatures are even expected to reach 90 degrees Fahrenheit in Gaza. These temperatures are far from “bitter,” “cold,” or “freezing.”
NBC News did not correct the articles.
It is unclear where both London-based NBC reporters sourced the information about cold, bitter or freezing weather in Gaza.
The narrative of “freezing” Gazans first appeared in a Nov. 16 Al Jazeera article, which stated, “[t]he United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that 13,000 families in Gaza whose homes were destroyed during two years of indiscriminate Israeli bombardment are now exposed to freezing temperatures and flooding in woefully inadequate shelters.” But UNRWA had claimed only that Gazans were “facing a harsh winter without the basics to protect them from the rain and cold.” It is unclear from the wording whether UNRWA meant Gazans were already “facing a harsh winter” or were facing the prospect of a harsh winter. NBC’s language, however, is devoid of any such ambiguity, simply and falsely claiming that there are presently “freezing” conditions in Gaza.
NBC News’ lie places it alongside more than just the Qatari propaganda outlet Al Jazeera. Iranian and Turkish propaganda outlets, like PressTV and TRT World, also spread the false “freezing” claim, as did activist “reporters” such as Motasem A. Dalloul.
Inside our tents, we’re freezing.. My children are trembling..
Gaza is freezing..— Motasem A Dalloul (@AbujomaaGaza) November 19, 2025
The cold-weather falsehood originating with UNRWA and turbocharged into “freezing” by Al Jazeera spread to agenda-driven, so-called humanitarian organizations, including Doctors Against Genocide, and even to the halls of the UK Parliament, where Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament, Stella Creasy, repeated the rhetoric.
Floods and freezing weather mean a dry night is a luxury in Gaza, yet Israeli forces are preventing shelter being let in – yesterday I pressed the foreign secretary on what the international community will do to address that and to ensure accountability for war crimes too. pic.twitter.com/Ojn5dloUZ7
— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) November 19, 2025
If reporters cannot even check a weather app, how can the public trust the media to report reliably on far more complex and subjective issues? The media’s failure to report accurately about something as objective as the weather understandably erodes the public’s confidence in its coverage of more nuanced political, social and international topics.
For the Hebrew version of this post, see here.