CAMERA’s Israel office has prompted corrections at both The New York Times and Haaretz‘s English edition after the two influential media outlets wrongly reported that Israel’s decision to cut electricity to the Gaza Strip impacted a wastewater treatment plant. In fact, the lone affected facility was a desalination plant near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
The Times’ March 9 article, “Israeli Energy Minister Cuts Off Electricity to Gaza,” which erroneously stated that the decision to cut Israel’s supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip will shut down a wastewater treatment facility.
The subheadline had erred: “The move, which will mainly affect a single wastewater treatment plant, appeared intended to put pressure on Hamas.” (Screenshot at left.)The text of the article repeated the error: “The decision’s clearest effect was the disconnection, once again, of a wastewater treatment plant in the enclave that had recently been operating on Israeli power.”
In fact, the only electricity that Israel has been supplying to Gaza was to operate a desalination plant, not a wastewater treatment plant. As Associated Press reported (“Israel cuts off electricity supply to Gaza, affecting a desalination plant producing drinking water“):
Israel cut off the electricity supply toGaza, officials said Sunday, affecting a desalination plant producing drinking water for part of the arid territory. . . .The desalination plant was providing 18,000 cubic meters of water per day for central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah area, according to Gisha, an Israeli organization dedicated to protecting Palestinians’ right to freedom of movement. Executive director Tania Hary said that it’s expected to run on generators and produce around 2,500 cubic meters per day, about the amount in an Olympic swimming pool.
In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, The Times replaced the erroneous references to the wastewater facility with correct reporting about a single desalination plant.
In addition, a correction appended to the bottom of the article alerts readers to the change:
A correction was made on March 14, 2025: An earlier version of this article, relying on information from a source at the Israeli electric company, misstated the type of service affected by the electricity shut-off in Gaza. It was a desalination plant, not a wastewater treatment plant.
Haaretz’s English edition had likewise misidentified the facility as as a wastewater treatment plant (“Israeli Energy Minister Orders Cut Off All Electricity to Gaza. Hamas Energy Authority: No Power in Gaza Anyway”).
The article erred:
Following previous government directives, the only electricity that Israel had been supplying to Gaza was for a wastewater treatment plant, which will now also lose power.The head of the Gaza Energy Authority, Jalal Ismail, said “there’s no electricity in Gaza and all the infrastructure is destroyed.” According to him, the issue pertains exclusively to the wastewater treatment plant. . . .He explained that electricity was supplied through the Kisufim line solely to the Gaza wastewater treatment plant and no further. “The entire electricity issue concerns only the treatment plant and not any commercial or private entity,” he said, adding that the power station is not operating anyway. [Emphases added.]
In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, Haaretz issued a stealth correction, without appending a note alerting readers to the change.