Do Not Lose Sight Of The Real Tragedy In The Gaza Hospital Bombing

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Before considering what we don’t know about the bombing of Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital this week, let’s consider what we do know.

Around 7 p.m. local time Tuesday, an explosion occurred in the hospital’s courtyard, leaving what appears to be a small impact crater and setting off a large fire. Footage from the scene showed one vehicle flipped on its head, and several others burned out.

More important, the victims: Agence France-Presse correspondents on the scene “saw dozens of bodies.” One man who responded to the explosion told the outlet he had “collected the eyes, arms, legs and heads of the deceased,” in AFP’s words. Video confirmed by the Associated Press showed “hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children.” A Palestinian Red Crescent paramedic told The New York Times in an article published Wednesday that “there are still lots of bodies they haven’t yet collected.” Some victims, unidentified and in pieces, would likely be buried in numbered body bags, he said.

One man, Abu Muhammad Al-Turkman, lost five children and his wife in the explosion, +972 Magazine reported. One of his relatives said Al-Turkman was incapable of distinguishing one body part from another as he collected the pieces of his family, according to the report.

Yet another Gazan sheltering at the hospital at the time, Muhammad Al-Dahdar, told the magazine, “It was dark and there was fire everywhere, and a smell of blood and burned meat. I felt like I was stepping on body parts.”

I emphasize these grisly details, first, because they show the true nature of this conflict. Hamas’ military incursion and ongoing shelling aimed at Israel, and Israel’s ongoing airstrikes aimed at the Gaza Strip ― not to mention ongoing violence in the West Bank ― have resulted primarily in the deaths of civilians, and thousands of them.

Second, these details took hours, or even days, to establish. Reporting from the Gaza Strip is nearly impossible due to Israel’s airstrikes and ongoing blockade of the area. Trustworthy information is scarce; numerous journalists have been killed in recent days. When an Australian broadcaster asked an Israeli military spokesperson what sort of protection Israel could provide to independent journalists in Gaza “so we can have a clearer picture,” he didn’t directly answer the question.

So when the hospital was hit Tuesday, news organizations ― including HuffPost, which republished Associated Press reporting ― went with what they knew. At the time, in the so-called “fog of war,” that was very little: Palestinian authorities claimed an Israeli airstrike had hit the hospital. Since then, Israel has rejected blame, pointing to video footage that officials say shows a misfire from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group in the Gaza Strip. Some independent analysis may back up that view ― or, more specifically, that the damage at the hospital was not consistent with a typical Israeli airstrike ― but the truth, on either side, is far from established.

Eventually, with Israel’s denials, early headlines ― which blared that an Israeli airstrike at the hospital had killed hundreds, according to Palestinian authorities ― were softened and further hedged, reflecting the blame-trading between sides.

The articles themselves largely made clear that news organizations hadn’t confirmed key details, including the deathtoll, but the narrative had been set: News consumers often just skim headlines.

Some, like reporter and media critic Parker Molloy, argued that news organizations should change the structure of their headlines ― even though the initial headlines were true, that Palestinian officials were blaming Israel. Molloy said such formulations amounted to a “technicality,” and news organizations seeking readers’ trust ought to be clearer when they are merely relaying an unverified claim.

Batya Ungar-Sargon, Newsweek’s opinion editor, articulated the most extreme criticism: “Nearly every legacy media outlet in the country eagerly swallowed a blood libel peddled by baby mutilating butchers just weeks after they committed a massacre because it allowed these ‘journalists’ to recast Jews as the perpetrators instead of the victims,” she wrote.

Were the initial headlines misleading? Are news organizations obliged to report what they know, when they know it? Should they have waited to include Israel’s denial? Should they have reported on the mere existence of a “blast,” without mentioning the source at all?

Unfortunately, there will be ample opportunity to try answers to these questions as the killing continues. But at least two key news outlets, for what it’s worth, stand by their coverage.

“During any breaking news event, we report what we know as we learn it,” a New York Times spokesperson told HuffPost in a statement. “We apply rigor and care to what we publish, explicitly citing sources and noting when a piece of news is breaking and likely to be updated. And as the facts on the ground become more clear, we continue reporting. Our extensive and continued reporting on the hospital in Gaza makes explicit the murkiness surrounding the events there.”

A Reuters spokesperson said it was “standard practice” to “publish statements and claims made by sources about news in the public interest, while simultaneously working to verify and seek information from every side. We make it clear to our readers that these are ‘claims’ made by a source, rather than facts reported by Reuters. In the specific instance of the fast-breaking news about the attack on the hospital in Gaza, we added precise details and attribution to our stories as quickly as we could.”

The Associated Press didn’t respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Ultimately, the tragedy in the media back-and-forth was its success in turning attention away from the Gazans hurt and killed by the explosion. The same could be said for the wave of false claims that have spread on social media not only about this explosion, but about other incidents throughout the war, pushed by propagandists and shameless social media entrepreneurs.

Both Israelis and Palestinians know how essential it is to document war atrocities: The Holocaust and the Nakba are central elements of both groups’ respective histories, and politicians from either side have pursuedmeasures against denying that history.

The volleying over headlines this week is no doubt a continuation of that awareness, of the desperation to keep count of the dead and assert the importance of their lives on the world stage.

I’m thinking now not of the hospital strike, but of a 4-year-old boy, said to be named Omar Bilal Al-Banna, whose dead body was filmed in Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital on Oct. 12 by the Palestinian journalist Momen El Halabi. Soon after, the Israeli government claimed that footage of the boy instead showed a doll ― a prop, a terrorist fraud. Weandothers reported on El Halabi’s denials of these claims and on the lack of evidence to support Israel’s allegation.

But the Israeli government has not acknowledged any error, and its assertion is still public on its social media pages.

It is to Omar and everyone else under a bomb, or held hostage at gunpoint, that my colleagues and I owe our loyalty. I only hope we’re up for the challenge.