On July 21, 2026, CAMERA communicated with The New York Times regarding Omer Bartov’s July 21, 2026, opinion column “I’m a Scholar of Genocide. We’re Entering a Terrifying New Era.” In his column, the Brown University professor makes a serious – and erroneous – claim:
Since the current cease-fire in Gaza went into effect on Oct. 10, and President Trump’s 20-point plan was endorsed by the Security Council on Nov. 17, more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israeli attacks. (Emphasis added.)
However, not even the June 2026 Al Jazeera article he links to supports his claim. It says over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed. Some of them might have been civilians, but many were members of Hamas or other terror organizations in the Gaza Strip.
In its communications with the Times, CAMERA pointed to several examples in which the Palestinians killed in Gaza between Oct. 10, 2025, and July 20, 2026 were unambiguously terrorists. Some of these terrorists were involved in the kidnapping of Israeli hostages.
CAMERA also provided the Times with examples of its own coverage contradicting Bartov’s claim. These included an article from December 2025 stating Israel killed four Hamas members and an article from May 2026 that reported the killing of Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the commander of Hamas’ military wing.
The Times corrected the column and issued a correction note:
An earlier version of this article referred imprecisely to the death toll from Israeli attacks since the cease-fire in Gaza took effect on Oct. 10, 2025. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed; that number includes people other than civilians.
Bartov’s factual mistake undermines his argument, since it shows that many of those killed were engaged in armed combat.