Hamas, Al Jazeera Drop Death Count in Gaza Airstrike from 40 to 19

Gaza authorities controlled by the Hamas terror organization, and the Al Jazeera news website controlled by Qatar, miraculously lowered the reported death count from an Israeli airstrike from 40 to 19 in new reports on Tuesday.

As Breitbart News reported, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted a targeted airstrike Monday on three Hamas commanders who had deliberately placed their operation center inside a humanitarian zone for Palestinian civilians.

USA Today reported claims that 65 people had been killed or wounded, then cited the “Hamas-run Gaza government media office,” which “put the number of fatalities at more than 40.” Al Jazeera reported that 40 people were killed and that 60 had been wounded — without noting, in its televised reports, that the numbers came from Hamas. The chyron on Al Jazeera English read “Israel Targets Al Mawasi: At least 40 Palestinians killed and 60 others injured.”

It added: “Genocide in Gaza.”

However, later after Israel rejected those casualty figures, Al Jazeera revised its report, saying that “at least 19” had been killed. (The URL for its report still reported the figure of 40, adding the editorializing word “heinous.”)

Hamas routinely overstates the number of casualties in Israeli attacks, and does not distinguish between terrorists and civilians. Israel shut down the local office of Al Jazeera in May, describing the network as terrorist propaganda.

Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters that Hamas death counts were “invariably lies,” and asked the media not to report those figures uncritically until the correct numbers had been verified by Israel.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.