An article that ran on October 26 in TIME Magazine, “Biden Cast Doubt on Gaza’s Death Toll. Palestinian Officials Responded With 6,747 Names” by Yasmeen Serhan, created a false impression for TIME readers about the explosion at Al Ahli hospital on October 17. After setting forth the dueling governmental claims, TIME reported, “A recent visual investigation into the blast carried out by the New York Times remains inconclusive.”
But TIME omitted the extensive and fairly conclusive report of the Associated Press.
The AP “review[ed] more than a dozen videos from news broadcasts, security cameras and social media posts, and match[ed] the locations to satellite imagery and photos from before the explosion,” and then “ran its visual analysis by a half-dozen experts who all agreed the most likely scenario was a rocket from within Gaza that veered off and came apart seconds before the explosion.” It reached the conclusion that “the rocket that broke up in the air was fired from within Palestinian territory, and that the hospital explosion was most likely caused when part of that rocket crashed to the ground.” Failure to include this information leaves TIME readers with a false impression about the cause of the blast.
In an article about the reliability of Hamas-reported casualty counts, the European estimate that only 50 or less were killed in the hospital blast also would have been a relevant point to include.
The article also quotes President Biden as follows: “‘I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s a price of waging a war,’ Biden said at a press conference on Wednesday. ‘But I have no confidence in the number that the Palestinians are using.’ The President didn’t offer further evidence for his skepticism of the Palestinian health ministry’s data….” The article does link the Palestinian health ministry to Hamas. Obvious to anyone closely following the situation, but not necessarily to all TIME readers – and apparently not to the TIME reporter who wrote the article – is that the group that just carried out the horrific October 7 massacre is not trustworthy.
CAMERA has contacted TIME to request clarification of the article.