Published on Sunday and updated on Monday, the New York Times wrote “the Hamas-run Gazan health ministry accused Israel of attacking the Ahli Arab hospital, a medical center in Gaza City where scores of families had been sheltering” and the claim was widely cited by international news outlets, including The New York Times.
The Times then admitted: “But in the days since, as new evidence contradicting the Hamas claim has emerged, the Gazan authorities have changed their story about the blast. Spokespeople have released death tolls varying from 500 to 833, before settling on 471.”
While The Times falls incredibly short of any sort of apology for its biased and false reporting, it did get turned down by Hamas for a request to view any available evidence of the munition it said had struck the hospital.
“The missile has dissolved like salt in the water,” said Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, in a phone interview with the Times. “It’s vaporized. Nothing is left.”
Salama Maroof, the head of the Hamas-run government media office, said in a text message: “Who says we’re obligated to present the remnants of every rocket that kills our people? In general, you can come and research and confirm for yourself from the evidence we possess.”
Despite Hamas’ claim that the missile came from Israel, multiple news outlets and military intelligence from multiple countries concluded the rocket did in fact come from inside Hamas and failed to reach Israel, its intended target.
The Times reports: “But by the time reporters arrived at the site on the morning after the blast, any remnants of the munition appeared to have been removed, preventing independent analysis of its origin. Reporters and photographers who toured the site that day found a shallow dent in the ground, but no deep crater of the kind usually caused by an Israeli precision-guided missile used in an airstrike.”
There is also no evidence of the hundreds of casualties, nor bodies from the civilians allegedly taking shelter within the hospital.