The New York Times published a story detailing Hamas’ attack on Israel as its members killed women and children, abducted civilians and bombed communities — however, the outlet can’t seem to decide on whether to call Hamas militants “terrorists” or “gunmen.”
Social media sleuths pointed out that when The Times first published its piece on Tuesday — titled “Hamas Leaves Trail of Terror in Israel” — the subheading denounced “the massacre of civilians by Hamas terrorists.”
By Tuesday evening, “terrorists” had been changed to “gunmen,” according to website archival platform archive.today.
At that point, the switch-up had already garnered a flurry of fierce criticism on social media — namely X, formerly Twitter — with users condemning The Times as “antisemitic.”
Former Daily Caller journalist Greg Price called The Times out for the edit late Tuesday night, when he shared screenshots of the two stories with two different descriptions of Hamas below the headline.
“Holy sh-t you can’t make this up,” he wrote in a tweet that’s since been viewed over 2.3 million times.
Outraged users responded: “The @nytimes is trash,” and, “If you don’t cancel your NYT subscription now, when?”
Price likened calling Hamas members “gunmen” to saying: “Untold pain suffering was caused by the amateur pilots on 9/11.”
And another user equated The Times’ move to The Washington Post’s obituary for ISIS leader Abu Bark al-Baghdadi, when they called the longtime terrorist leader an “austere religious scholar.”
“These vibes,” the user wrote with a screenshot of the ill-fated article.
Following the firestorm of criticism, The Times appeared to have edited the text again on Wednesday — this time back to calling Hamas “terrorists.”
However, the body of the article still refers to members of the Gaza-based organization as “gunman,” noting that the group hit “killed more than 1,000 people [in Israel], including women and children, and abducted an estimated 150 more people. “
Representatives for The Times did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Liberal media rival Washington Post is also seemingly avoiding calling Hamas “terrorists.”
WaPo’s live feed of the Israel-Gaza war only refers to Hamas as “militants,” with no mention of the word “terrorist” on the feed’s landing page.
The US has designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.
The federal center — which taps specialists from federal agencies including the CIA, FBI, Department of Defense and Homeland Security — cited “violent resistance against Israel,” suicide bombings and rocket attacks as reason for the terrorist distinction.
The UK has also proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organization, though British broadcaster BBC has refused to use the term, instead calling Hamas members “militants.”
The decision has even been condemned by the British government, which told the outlet that it should refer to Hamas as “terrorists” even without attribution.
The Post has sought comment from WaPo and BBC.
Hamas, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a group that governs Gaza, a 25-mile-long strip of land along the Mediterranean with a population of more than two million people and the West Bank, a larger area which has both Palestinian and Israeli settlements but is under Israeli military occupation.
The group has repeatedly used terrorist tactics against the Israelis, including mass murder, as the group’s leadership vowed for the erasure of the Jewish state and the creation of an Islamic state in its place.
The reason given by Hamas for launching the action was “in defense of the Aqsa Mosque,” referring to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, which it claims Israel had allowed Jewish groups to “desecrate” by praying at the site.
It has also cited the longstanding Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip, which has been ongoing since 2007, and Israeli violence against Palestinians as reasons for the terror attack.