New York Times issues multiple corrections on Israeli-Palestinian coverage, ripped for 'shameful propaganda'

The New York Times issued multiple corrections to reports on Israeli-Palestinian violence in the Middle East over the past week, having published what appeared to be both inaccurate information and images.

The Times feature "They Were Only Children" on the front page of its May 26, 2021 edition, was accompanied by photos of dozens of youths who were killed during the unrest between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization last month. In the piece, the Times alleged that most of the children were killed by Israeli airstrikes.

But readers noticed that one of the photos of a young girl reportedly killed during the unrest was a reprint of a photo from 2017. Editors have since replaced the photo with one "supplied by the family," they noted on Twitter.

"We published a picture in error," Times Middle East Editor Herbert Buchsbaum tweeted. "The child in the photograph of Rahaf al-Masri was not her. We've replaced that photo with one supplied by her family. Rahaf was killed on the first night of the war, as we reported. The photo was wrong."

Readers noted that that was only one of several mistakes or omissions in the Times feature. Another young person included in the compilation of photographs of victims was 17-year-old Khaled al-Qanou, who has since been claimed as a Hamas militant. The Times later made note of the development.

The Times also initially declared in a May 21 story that "mostly civilians" were among the 250 dead before issuing a correction Monday acknowledging, "it is not known whether most of those killed were civilians."

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"Watching the New York Times try to wrap their minds around Hamas's use of child soldiers and human shields is the Zoolander 'it's in the computer' scene," tweeted Sen. Ted Cruz's, R-Texas, national security advisor Omri Ceren.

Marc Ashed, the Midwest Political Director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, was also outraged by the report, tweeting, "But the @nytimes rushed to report factually incorrect stories that expose the bias in reporting towards Israel.. this won’t be the last identified as a civilian but truly a member of a terror group."

"It's not just the stunning lack of research done by the @nytimes in posting a terrorist's picture on their front page as if he were a child victim, it's their glossing over the fact that so many of the reported *victims* in Gaza were actually Hamas military combatants," reacted Joel M. Petlin, Superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District and contributor to The Forward.

"No fewer than nine times, ‘They Were Only Children’ states that children were killed either by an Israeli airstrike, Israeli warplane or Israeli bomb, ascribing responsibility solely to Israel; in reality, responsibility for these deaths can shift 180 degrees depending on the answers to questions that don’t even seem to have been asked," wrote The Times of Israel's Robert Satloff in a piece identifying several problem areas in the Times cover story.

Investigative reporter David Collier ripped the newspaper for publishing what he called, "abysmal, unforgivable, shameful propaganda."

His ire was shared by other readers like former national director of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman, who tweeted: "I am cancelling my subscription to NYTimes. I grew up in America on the NYT- I delivered the NYT to my classmates- I learned civics- democracy and all the news "fit to print" for 65 years but no more. Today’s blood libel of Israel and the Jewish people on the front page is enough."

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Israel and Hamas militants engaged last month in their most violent clash since the 2014 Gaza War after Hamas launched rockets into Israel and Israel responded with a series of air strikes. The parties announced a ceasefire after 11 days of violence.