These 8 news outlets relied on terror group for casualty figures when reporting on Israel-Hamas war: study

Dash cam footage shows an armed Hamas terrorist at the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Reim in the Negev desert in southern Israel, on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo by ANONYMOUS/AFPArticle contentMajor media outlets, including The New York Times, The Guardian and Associated Press, relied on casualty figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health, run by terrorist organization Hamas, when reporting on the Israel-Hamas war, according to a new study.

The findings showed a dependence on aggregate numbers from Hamas, limited citation of data on terrorist deaths and “disproportionate doubt directed at different sources,” writes author Tatiana Glezer, from independent research group Fifty Global.

“Together, these patterns support a narrative in which total casualty figures are treated as civilian losses.”

Columnist Jesse Kline keeps you up to date with what’s happening in Israel and the effects of antisemitism on life here in Canada. Friday mornings.

A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.

The next issue of Channel Israel will soon be in your inbox.

We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again

The study, Selective Sources, Scrutiny, and the Absence of Standards in Military Conflict Coverage, was published on Sept. 15, in the peer-reviewed journal Digital Hate Review.

Security footage at the Kibbutz Be’ri showing Hamas shooting point blank at passengers in a car. HandoutArticle contentResearchers found that journalists cited numbers from the ministry in 100 per cent of the publications reviewed in the study, whereas only three per cent of all articles reviewed cited Israeli data.

The Israel-Hamas war was triggered by an attack by Hamas terrorists, who killed 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023. Although the Israeli military began withdrawing troops from Gaza as part of a peace deal in 2025, there is still violence and unrest in the region.

The study focuses on 1,378 articles published from March to June 2024 by eight English-language outlets: CNN, BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Reuters and Associated Press.

During that time period, there were still living hostages in Gaza.

The study found that like the Gaza Ministry of Health, the outlets did not distinguish between terrorist and civilian deaths in their reporting. Articles rarely included data from Israeli sources.