CNN Casts Doubt on Israeli Version of Hostage Rescue Story — Only to Have It Confirmed By Its Own Reporters

Isaac SchorrJun 11th, 2024, 2:01 pm
 

A CNN summary of the Israeli hostage rescue mission carried out on Saturday took pains to cast doubt on Israel’s version of the story before confirming its veracity a couple of lines and a few hours later.

Under the headline “An Israeli operation rescues four hostages and kills scores of Palestinians,” the article published on Sunday parroted the claim that “at least 274 Palestinians” were killed during the rescue mission, attributing that figure to mysterious “Gazan authorities” in order to avoid calling them by their real name: the Hamas-run health ministry. As CNN correctly notes, however, these authorities intentionally refrain from distinguishing between civilian and combatant casualties in order to juice up the overall numbers.

Sections of the piece, which currently has six bylines, extensively quote Israel Defense Forces Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, treating him as one of the story’s most valuable sources. And yet in one key passage, it suddenly calls his credibility into question.

“Hagari said that the IDF had come under intense fire, especially after withdrawing from the apartments [where the hostages were held], but did not provide evidence for his claims,” reads the story.

This might be an understandable disclosure were it not for the multitude of evidence confirming what Hagari said — some of which comes from CNN, wh!

In fact, just a couple of lines later, the authors say that “[Barak] Ravid, the CNN analyst, also reported there was a ‘robust firefight’ after the hostages were rescued.”

The story was updated several times. The first excerpt questioning the truth of what Hagari said appears to have been added mid-afternoon on Sunday. A few hours later, Ravid appeared on CNN and uttered the line about there being a “robust firefight.” The article was not updated to reflect his reporting until the following morning. And even then, the questioning of Hagari’s claim was not taken down.

Moreover, it was widely reported in the immediate aftermath of the operation that an Israeli police officer in a counterterrorism unit was killed during the operation; was it the impression of CNN’s writers and editors that he tripped and fell? Another CNN story, published on Tuesday, does note that “soon after the mission got underway, Israeli soldiers and militants began to exchange fire, according to eyewitness accounts.” According to Haaretz, the fighting on the ground between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has killed 298 IDF soldiers since October 7.

And in the background of helmet camera video released by the Israeli military, gunfire and explosions can be clearly heard.

It’s unclear then, given the surplus evidence for it, why CNN — the United States’ and the world’s most-read digital news source, according to Comscore — insisted on undercutting Hagari’s assertion. It’s especially befuddling considering the basic contours of the story; this wasn’t a game of “capture the flag.”

Last October a horde of Palestinian terrorists crossed into Israel to murder and kidnap innocent Israeli civilians as they marked a Jewish holiday — the resulting attack also included rape, torture, and other acts of brutality. For the past 8 months, those savages have held those they took hostage. An Israeli doctor who treated those hostages who were brought back under a ceasefire agreement last December told CBS that “There’s not a single person that came back that didn’t have a significant physical injury or a medical problem” and that the hostages had been subjected to branding, sexual abuse, and psychological torture by their captors.

All of this is to say: it never made any sense at all to suggest that Hamas fighters might have congratulated the Israeli rescue team once they reached the hostages and granted them safe passage out of Gaza.

Yet CNN’s compulsion to undermine Israel — one common to many other newsrooms across the West — is so strong as to compel them to make embarrassing mistakes like this one.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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