A 33-year-old Dutch woman has been killed in an explosion in Gaza. Islam al-Ashqar was visiting relatives at the Nusairat refugee camp in central Gaza and was one of 22 Dutch nationals the ministry was trying to help leave. Israel bombed the local evening market in the camp on Saturday night.
This happened two days ago and began being reported on yesterday, yet only Dutch sources are really commenting on it. And even those Dutch media sources seem to really be burying the lede on the fact that she was killed by an Israeli bombing run. Many of the articles are putting that fact at the end and equivocating it with “According to the Associated Press”.
Most of the headlines just say she died “in an explosion”, giving the implication Hamas was responsible.
I really don’t think anyone reads that Hamas bombed her. You’ll also see news will always say alleged, according to, etc until absolutely verified. That’s proper journalism.
The other comment chain is literally reading it as that. People literally deny the Holocaust, are you at all surprised that they can deny the genocide of Palestinians?
“I really don’t think anyone reads that Hamas bombed her.”
I’ve got someone now doing that exact equivocation in the reply just above yours.
Where?
Hyperreality up above.
Or maybe the media learned not to point fingers until there’s better evidence after that whole hospital debacle where everyone picked up the story without verifying the details.
Except that the IDF acknowledges that they bombed the refugee camp market on Saturday. That’s not in question right now. The only hanging question is whether she was killed in that or died in some other way at the exact same time, according to the above article.
Original Dutch article cited in the English article above, translated with deepl:
So let’s go over your comments here:
Not a verified fact.
Not equivocating or implying anything. Engaging in good journalism. They weren’t there. They didn’t see it with their own eyes. They’re simply reporting on what they’ve been told. IDF says this. Hamas says that. Nothing more. That’s just your bias speaking.
If the IDF makes a claim, reporters shouldn’t report it as a fact. If Hamas makes a claim, they shouldn’t report it as a fact.
Article says the IDF has not yet responded to inquiries. It is as yet unclear in which explosion the victim died.
What was the whole hospital “debacle?” Like I know the facts, there was a hospital that was hit by some kind of weapon. But the intention, and the who, is not exactly clear. So what are those two very important facts that the media got wrong?
I can’t remember the exact timeline of events, but early on it was reported and assumed to be IDF, while others claimed it wasn’t. Reports got walked back until there were more details, and now it’s generally agreed that it was probably a Hamas rocket that exploded or something.
So I think the press may just be a little more careful with how they portray things when there is only one source or they are reporting on what other news organizations are saying. You know - like they should be doing anyway.
That agreement has been getting walked back by the OSINT sources that initially confirmed it… As expected.
The only reputable international sources with journalists actually on the ground are Al Jazeera, Associated Press, and Reuters. There’s more regional sources like Al Arabiya operating there as well, but they’re not well-known in the West. Everyone else is just commenting on the same secondary sources and made up bullshit that we are online.
To be fair the IDF have bombed many times more hospitals than Hamas ever could.
The problem with the theory about a rocket misfire is the ordinance is too small to destroy a hospital. There’s theories about how it could have maybe set off fuel or oxygen tanks but no confirmation.
The hospital isn’t destroyed and no staff were killed.
A bunch of refugees in the parking lot, a lot less than reported by the health ministry, got killed by being coated in propellant and ignited. Fuel explosions make a big visual effect, but don’t really destroy buildings.
The same health ministry that over reported casualties is also hiding the ordinance remnants that did it instead of showing the world.
Oop, I definitely thought part of the building collapsed. Rereading though there was only “damage to buildings” not actual structural damage (though, again, the explosion was awfully large for a supposed rocket).
So how has Israel managed to confirm the death toll was lower than initially reported? They aren’t on the ground counting bodies.
The European and US intelligence services estimated the death toll at ~50 and 100-300 respectively.
I assume satellite imagery and counting…there’s probably also UAVs from all the great powers recording footage.
Seperately im fairly certain the Israeli security services have spies all over gaza. Somewhat grimly I think the air strikes have had a large component of people on the ground marking areas for strikes after confirming the presence of some Hamas member. It was a strategy exploited during the Russia/Ukraine war and it’s something Israelis can do because they are largely the same ethnicity.
As for the size of the explosion it’s not a great source but you can review pyrotechnic demonstrations of actual military munitions versus like a small special effects explosion and a lot of fuel. The former tends to not actually have a huge fire ploom like the hospital bombing had. There is one it’s just relatively small. If the rocket misfired and had a lot of ignited fuel spraying over the area… It causes that sort of imagery and casualties.
You’re putting a lot of faith in Western intelligence gathering - are you not at all worried that they’d underestimate the death toll to undermine the reporting coming from the Palestinians? Or that they’d cover up a mistake by Israel?