Media Outlets Quietly Stop Referring to the Gaza Ministry of Health’s Hamas Affiliation

In the days and weeks following Hamas’ October 7 massacre in southern Israel and the beginning of the Jewish State’s military response against the Gaza-based terror group, HonestReporting called out numerous media outlets for failing to inform their audiences that the Gaza Ministry of Health — a prime source for statistics on those killed and injured in Gaza — is run by Hamas.

Now, almost eight months later, it appears that some of these news organizations have reverted to ignoring the Gaza Ministry of Health’s affiliation with the terror group.

For a few weeks, @nytimes did the right thing and referred to the “Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.”

But it didn’t last long. Articles now appear to have reverted to type.

Because. New York Times. pic.twitter.com/msPocStlil

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) November 14, 2023

Following October 7, it took The New York Times more than a week before they started referring to the Gaza Ministry of Health as being “run” or “controlled” by Hamas.

They largely continued to use this terminology for months, until seemingly tapering off in March, appearing only once in April (in a guest essay by Israeli historian Benny Morris), and once in May.

A similar trend was observed with The Washington Post.

It took a couple of weeks into the war for the Post to refer to the Health Ministry as being run by Hamas (earlier articles published by the Post with this terminology were copies of articles by the Associated Press), and the last article to reference the control that the Gaza-based terror group holds over the Health Ministry was published on April 1.

Since then, any reference to the Gaza Ministry of Health or local health officials in The Washington Post is without the qualifying “Hamas-run” or “Hamas-controlled” terminology.

It also took CNN just under two weeks after the start of the war on October 7 to refer to the Gaza Ministry of Health as being under the control of Hamas.

The last CNN reference to the Health Ministry being “Hamas-run” was on April 6, 2024.

Why Does This Matter?

Global media organizations have relied on the casualty statistics released by the Gaza Ministry of Health during the war.

But failing to inform audiences of the affiliation with an internationally-recognized terror organization grants the Health Ministry an air of legitimacy and portrays it as an unbiased bureaucratic institution.

This, in turn, legitimizes the statistics being released by the Ministry, even though there is ample evidence that the Gazan health authorities skew the numbers in order to tarnish Israel’s reputation and harm the Jewish State’s campaign to uproot Hamas’ terror infrastructure from the Gaza Strip.

Alongside the fact that ignoring the Gaza Ministry of Health’s connection to Hamas is journalistic malpractice, what is even more concerning is the fact that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN all used the terms “Hamas-run” and “Hamas-controlled” when reporting on the Ministry for several months.

This suggests that these three news organizations made an editorial decision to stop using this qualifying terminology when reporting on the latest statistics.

The seemingly intentional choice to obfuscate the Hamas affiliation of the Gaza Health Ministry not only does a disservice to the readership of these three news outlets, but it also calls into question the journalistic integrity of their coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

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