The Media’s 21st-Century Blood Libel Against Israel

Even as Israel scores victory after victory in its war against Hamas, it is simultaneously fighting another war in the West—one against a vicious wave of blood libel.

Take last weekend’s events in Rafah, southern Gaza. The BBC initially reported that “at least 26” people had been killed by Israeli tanks at one aid distribution centre near Rafah. This was first according to a “Palestinian journalist,” who claimed that “Israeli tanks approached and opened fire” on the thousands-strong crowd waiting for supplies. It then upped that number to 31, on the word of the Hamas-run Ministry of Health. The BBC even had the audacity to remind readers that its reporting was “constrained by Israel’s conditions for international journalists from media organisations.” It failed to mention, however, that Hamas’s brutal regime of repression forces Palestinian journalists to self-censor—making it highly unlikely that the BBC is getting the unfiltered truth from local reporters on the ground. It did, however, later revise the death toll to “at least 21”, following a statement from the Red Cross. 

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has since denied firing at any civilians, and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)—an American, Israeli-backed initiative delivering food and supplies into Gaza—released a statement calling the reports of mass deaths “false and fabricated.” Israel also released drone footage of a separate incident, which it said showed masked men throwing stones and shooting at civilians while they collected aid from another distribution centre in Khan Younis. The BBC complained that it “could not immediately verify the footage,” though it seemed happy enough to take the videos, images and accounts of Palestinian journalists at face value. 

One such video, shared not by the BBC but by an Al Jazeera journalist and widely circulated on social media, was captioned as showing the “horrific massacre committed by Israeli forces near a U.S. aid distribution site in southern Gaza.” But as part of its investigation into Israel’s supposed Rafah massacre, even BBC’s Verify service geolocated the footage to a spot in Khan Younis—4.5km away from the nearest aid site. BBC Verify also noted that the timing, based on shadows, suggested the video was filmed in the evening, not the morning, when the shooting was said to have taken place. A local Palestinian journalist, who also filmed the scene, confirmed that the events were unrelated to anything that happened at the GFH centre. 

So far, it remains unclear exactly what did or did not happen at the aid centre in Rafah. It seems likely that there were indeed casualties there. But it is yet to be established, by the BBC or any other media outlet, who committed the shooting and why. 

This was far from the only falsehood that Israel has had to contend with lately. Alongside the claims of a massacre at the Rafah aid centre, another narrative has been gaining momentum—the idea that Israel is orchestrating a deliberate famine in Gaza. That is the central message of Swedish climate activist turned pro-Palestine agitator Greta Thunberg and her so-called Freedom Flotilla. Setting sail from Catania, southern Italy, last Sunday, the flotilla aims to “break the siege” on Gaza and deliver “symbolic” humanitarian aid to the strip via sea. 

According to Thunberg and Co., Israel is waging a “genocide” against the people of Gaza, via a block on aid that has been in place since the beginning of March this year. The Jewish State has been accused of purposefully orchestrating a mass famine, and even faces charges of the war crime of starvation at the hands of international courts. Tom Fletcher, the man in charge of the United Nations’s relief operation in Gaza, made the astonishing (and patently false) claim last month that 14,000 babies could die in Gaza within 48 hours if aid did not reach them. 

The crucial piece of information missing from this narrative, as reported in much of the Western mainstream media, is that Israel is trying to feed Gaza. As of last week, the GHF has been sending trucks with food and other essential supplies into the strip. The aim is to establish four secure distribution centres, manned by private military contractors from the U.S., as well as IDF soldiers, to prevent Hamas militants from pilfering aid meant for needy Gazans. You would think this might obviously disprove the claim that Israel is deliberately trying to starve Palestinians. But so far, the new initiative has only provoked Western media pundits to complain that Israel is “militarising aid” by bypassing the UN and attempting to distribute supplies directly. 

Ultimately, of course, none of these refutations or corrections will make a difference. The likes of the BBC and CNN (which also reported the story about mass deaths at the aid centre, largely uncritically) have already managed to send falsehoods about Israel around the world. It never matters that Israel is so often proven justified in its various acts of war. Just look at the assassination of Mohammad Sinwar. 

Ever since Hamas’s brutal October 7th pogrom triggered this war in 2023, Israel has been accused of cruelly and needlessly targeting hospitals. It was roundly condemned by the international community for “aiming to destroy Gaza’s health infrastructure” and attacking “essential life-saving civilian infrastructure.” Only, the apparently successful killing of Sinwar, the de facto leader of Hamas in Gaza, would appear to disprove this narrative. Last month, Sinwar was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the European Hospital in Khan Younis, a fact only recently confirmed by the IDF. The official statement said that Sinwar and other top Hamas militants were sheltering in tunnels beneath the hospital. This would be perfectly in line with what we know about Hamas’s cowardly and downright evil use of civilian buildings to hide weapon caches and even torture prisoners. 

But none of this will ever matter to Israel’s detractors. Because the Jewish State is not judged like any other state, and certainly not like any other democracy. It will never matter that there really was a Hamas command centre beneath a Gazan hospital. Nor will it matter that no one has yet been able to confirm what exactly happened at the aid centre in Rafah. It certainly will never matter that the UN has been largely responsible for blocking Israeli aid to Gaza. Once this 21st-century blood libel has been published, the damage cannot be undone. It filters down through the Western media to the pro-Palestine protestors on the streets of London, Berlin, and Paris, who rage against “genocidal Zionists” and paint Israel as a uniquely bloodthirsty nation. 

Now more than ever, Israel desperately needs support in the West. European leaders have recently begun to turn their backs on the world’s only Jewish state. The UK suspended trade talks with Israel last month. French president Emmanuel Macron is considering recognising the Palestinian state. Even Germany, which was once one of Israel’s staunchest supporters on the continent, is reviewing its arms exports. Clearly, Europe is no longer a reliable ally in Israel’s fight against an existential enemy. 

The war against Hamas is more than winnable. But the war against the West’s wilful blindness may prove more challenging.