Israel constantly uses contradictory, baseless, and demonstrably false accusations against not only journalists but medical workers, emergency crews, aid workers and teachers.
After launching a precision missile strike that killed Al-Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and freelance cameraman Rami al-Rifi, Israel recently accused al-Ghoul of being part of the Nukhba elite forces of Hamas.
This fact-free claim triggered the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) to denounce such smears, presenting a list of similarly debunked claims and placing more attention on the issue.
Yet, the issue of Israel fabricating evidence and spreading outrageous lies to justify their forces murdering innocent people does not just apply to its attacks on journalists and spans back over a much longer period of time.
Take for instance the case of volunteer medic Razan al-Najjar, who was murdered by an Israeli sniper as she attended to wounded non-violent Palestinian protesters, during a 2018 Great Return March demonstration.
After killing the 21-year-old, who was wearing white medic overalls and a vest that clearly marked her as a medical worker, Israeli government officials began sharing an out-of-context mistranslated video to allege that she was working to be a “human shield for Hamas”.
Razan al-Najjar was then smeared even further by the Israeli military when they released a video which they say proved she was holding and attempting to form a bomb at Israeli soldiers.
The occupation army then claimed that none of their soldiers directly opened fire on her, before changing their narrative to suggest that the direct bullet wound that pierced the young medic’s heart may have come as a result of a sniper bullet’s ricochet.
Israel’s top human rights group, B’Tselem, then debunked the footage released by the military and proved that the video had been doctored.
B’Tselem’s investigation into the incident concluded the following:
“Contrary to the many versions offered by the military, the facts of the case lead to only one conclusion… al-Najjar was fatally shot by a member of the security forces who was aiming directly at her as she was standing about 25 meters (82 feet) away from the fence, despite the fact that she posed no danger to him or anyone else and was wearing a medical uniform.”
Back in June, The Guardian collaborated with the Paris-based non-for-profit Forbidden Stories to produce an investigative piece that concluded that evidence suggests that Israeli forces view Palestinian journalists who work for outlets that they consider to be tied to Hamas as legitimate targets.
However, only 30 percent of all the journalists killed by Israel were working for media outlets that are viewed as “Hamas affiliated”.
The Guardian also noted that a senior Israeli spokesperson had stated that there is “no difference” between a journalist working for Al-Aqsa TV – known to be the main media outlet aligned with Hamas – and a member of the group’s actual armed wing.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, prior to the passing of a ban on Al-Jazeera from operating inside 1948 Palestine, had declared that the Qatari-funded media outlet was “Hamas’ mouthpiece”.
Understanding now that evidence suggests that the Israeli military, or at least elements of it, view Palestinian journalists who are said to be working for channels affiliated with Hamas, are considered valid targets, the assassination of Ismail al-Ghoul and other Al-Jazeera journalists makes sense under this warped view of reality.
Israel will also murder journalists, amidst a military mission, or civilian massacre and then make up outrageous and contradictory claims in an attempt to justify what is clearly a war crime.
A clear-cut case of this happened with journalist Abdallah Aljamal who was shot dead in his home by Israeli soldiers, during their operation to free a handful of Israeli captives held in the same building.
After this military operation in June, during which the Israeli army inflicted a massacre of almost 300 Palestinian civilians, Israel then spread contradictory claims against Aljamal in an attempt to claim he was a Hamas operative who was holding Israelis captive at home, allegations that CNN immediately pointed out to have been nonsensical.
Then there’s also the tactic of alleging that Palestinian fighters killed their own people, which we saw back in 2022 with the killing of Palestinian-American veteran Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
The Israeli Prime Minister at the time, Naftali Bennet, blamed the Jenin Brigades armed group for killing Shireen Abu Akleh, sharing a completely unrelated video of Palestinian fighters shooting in the camp.
Israeli rights group B’Tselem quickly launched an investigation into the incident and debunked the claim that the video showed the possible culprits of the direct headshot that killed the journalist, demonstrating it to have been nowhere near the area, taken at a different time and that the bullets fired were in a different direction.
It was later demonstrated by CNN, the New York Times, the UN, AP, Washington Post, Channel 4 News, the BBC and Amnesty International, that Israel was responsible.
When Israeli missile strikes murdered over 100 Palestinian civilians on August 10, at the Tabaeen School in Gaza City, it also tried to use the excuse that it had killed “terrorists” belonging to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
Israel first released 19 names of the alleged “terrorists” it had “eliminated”, which included three who were killed in different airstrikes before the attack on the school site, one of whom was killed all the way back in December.
Israeli spokespeople outright denied what the whole world saw with their own eyes and claimed that it only killed “terrorists” affiliated with Hamas or PIJ, despite the fact that others in their list of 19 were school teachers and even Hamas opponents.
A Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor investigation also revealed that the claims about the school being used as a “Hamas command and control headquarters” were baseless and also that the school was not even capable of facilitating the kinds of military activities claimed by the Israeli army.
It suffices to say that Israel constantly uses contradictory, baseless and demonstrably false accusations against not only journalists, but medical workers, emergency crews, aid workers and teachers, in addition to regular civilians, to try and justify murdering innocent people.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Wasrael learned their psychopathy from their favorite Uncle, Sam.
Israel has a long and infamous record of attempting to snuff out the light of truth and reality that journalists shine on Zionist barbarity because Israel has to hide behind a cloak of lies, deceit and misrepresentation to project its bogus image of being ‘civilised’. Western journalists are banned from entering Gaza precisely because they would report what they see to the world. The laughable grounds that Israel gives for the ban is that it would be too dangerous! Yes, it would be dangerous because, in common with courageous journalists already inside Gaza, they would be fair game for the IDF!
“Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it IS democracy.”
(Walter Cronkite)
Why be so mealy-mouthed about these murders? They are murders, not “killings” incidental to the missions the IDF were allegedly on. And so the IDF have turned themselves into terrorists. Because the only reasons to murder a journalist, is to prevent the truth from getting out, and to terrify anyone else who might also wish to tell the truth. The murder of Shireen Abu Akleh was an act of terrorism, intended to terrify Palestinians as a whole.
It’s very frustrating reading ,watching,listening to our media news. BBC mainly, you can tell,reading between the lines they want to report facts, yet they have to make sure they are not censored . I heard Israel call BBC hamas mouth piece at one time, which is incredible.