The Washington Post published a story on Sunday that cited Hamas officials to pin the killing of "over 30" Gazans near a U.S. aid site on Israeli troops. The headline blared: "Israeli troops kill over 30 near U.S. aid site in Gaza, health officials say," though Israel denied the charge and available evidence casts doubt on the Post’s claims.
"At least 31 people were killed Sunday morning in Southern Gaza, according to the Strip’s Health Ministry, when Israeli troops opened fire on crowds making their way to collect aid from a new distribution mechanism backed by Israel and the United States that has been marred by chaos and violence since it began operating last week," the Post report stated. "More than 170 others were wounded Sunday in the Rafah shooting, officials said, marking the deadliest incident yet as Palestinians desperately scramble for food despite the danger."
The Post updated its story Sunday evening, changing its headline to read, "More than 30 killed by gunfire near U.S. aid site in Gaza."
"Scores of Palestinians were killed and wounded trying to reach a food distribution site in southern Gaza on Sunday, according to residents, medics, and the local health ministry," the Post now reports. The paper did not add an editor’s note explaining why it made wholesale editorial changes to the story. Nor did it respond to a Washington Free Beacon request for comment regarding whether it is the outlet’s editorial practice to give more weight to the claims of the Gaza Health Ministry than those of the Israel Defense Forces.
The ordeal is the latest example of the Post's anti-Israel bias, which has drawn attention in Washington, D.C., and come under fire for factual inaccuracy. In the wake of Oct. 7, the Post, which filled its foreign desk with Al Jazeera veterans, has faced accusations that its coverage of the conflict is more anti-Israel activism than dispassionate reporting. A report last year on an Israeli hostage rescue mission in a Palestinian refugee camp, for example, was headlined, "More than 200 Palestinians killed in Israeli hostage raid in Gaza." A three-paragraph editors note, meanwhile, is now appended to a report on Israel's alleged mistreatment of the mothers of premature infants.
Though the Post’s original aid site shooting report was based on allegations from the Gaza Health Ministry, video evidence appeared to contradict the Hamas-run agency’s claims. The IDF issued an initial statement denying the reports, and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation—an Israel- and U.S.-backed organization managing aid distribution—released security footage of the Rafah aid site at the time of the alleged killings. Rather than the violence described in the Post report, the security footage shows Gazans waiting in line to collect humanitarian aid. The video does not show any shooting.
The IDF noted that its troops had fired warning shots to ward off potential thieves about one kilometer away from the Rafah location several hours before aid distribution began. It also released drone footage of a different distribution site—one in Khan Younis—that showed masked gunmen shooting into a crowd of Gazans receiving humanitarian aid.
The Post took a different approach from other mainstream outlets in its coverage of the story. While the New York Times did report that "Palestinians who had gathered overnight in the hope of obtaining food from an aid distribution center in Gaza came under fire, according to local health officials," it did not use the Gaza Health Ministry’s accusations against Israel in its headline.
The Wall Street Journal used similar language, writing, "More than 20 Gazans were killed as they made their way to a U.S.-Israeli aid distribution center, Palestinian authorities said."
The result of the Post's coverage was a comment section in which readers described "Israel's actions near aid distribution sites in Gaza" as "genocidal," accused the Jewish state of "committing war crimes" and implementing "a broader strategy of ethnic cleansing," and called for "an end to U.S. support for Israel," according to the Post's AI-generated summary.
One of the reporters on the Post story is a former Al Jazeera correspondent, Louisa Loveluck, who recently made headlines for delivering an anti-Israel diatribe to the Post newsroom.
Speaking to colleagues after her reporting team was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for reporting on the Israel-Hamas war, she said of Gaza, "Two million civilians are trapped there through no fault of their own. The life they lead there is a nightmare. The level of suffering is so grave that we have often struggled to find the words." Several colleagues, according to Jewish Insider, took issue with the fact that Loveluck made no mention of Hamas or the Israeli hostages.
Loveluck was the lead reporter on the now heavily edited story alleging that Israel had a policy of separating Palestinian mothers from their premature infants. An editor’s note now affixed to the piece reveals the article "incorrectly said that all Palestinian mothers who received authorization to leave Gaza for humanitarian reasons had to return to Gaza to reapply after their permits expired. In fact, it was not always necessary for mothers to return to Gaza."
The Post also notes that Loveluck and her team "neglected to seek comment from Israeli officials for this article."