CAMERA’s Israel office prompted correction of a Reuters article which egregiously erred that the Israel-Hamas war started in the Gaza Strip in October 2023.
Erasing Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, the Feb. 22 article entitled “Yemen’s Houthis launched missile at US fighter jet, missed, invented: “The Iran-aligned movement, which controls northern Yemen, has also frequently fired missiles at Israel over the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, where the war began more than 16 months ago.” (Emphasis added. Screenshot at left).
The kidnapping of the Bibas family from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2023 (Screenshot from video)
As Reuters elsewhere correctly reported the following day: “The war started when Hamas-led militants launched a cross-border attack on Israeli communities that killed 1,200 and took 251 hostages, according to Israel.”
Reuters editors agreed with CAMERA that a correction was needed, and commendably amended the article to accurately report:
The Iran-aligned movement, which controls northern Yemen, has also frequently fired missiles at Israel over the past year in what it says is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The territory has been devastated by the more than 16-month war following a Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities.
In addition, editors appended the following note to the top of the article alerting readers to the change: “This Feb. 22 story has been corrected to fix the description of Gaza in paragraph 8.” Secondary outlets which had published the story, including US News & World Report, Yahoo and MSN, likewise updated with the corrected text.
This most recent Reuters clarification that the war began with Hamas’ attack on Israel follows a similar previous correction after the wire service published a Facebook post last April which cited “the war Israel launched against Hamas,” as if Israel and not Hamas started the war.