How The New York Times Helped Israel Kill Journalists In Gaza.

The New York Times Helped Israel Spread Israeli Smears Used To Justify Killing Heroic Journalists Exposing The Genocide On The Ground In Gaza.

In my last article, I covered a new open letter from 300 writers, scholars, and public figures, including 150 former New York Times writers, who called out the paper’s propaganda justifying Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

In the article, I covered some of the key Israeli deceptions laundered through the New York Times, including false claims of mass rape on October 7th, that Al Shifa hospital was a Hamas command centre, and that Hamas looted humanitarian aid.

In addition to these, the New York Times also laundered Israeli smear campaigns against journalists reporting on the ground in Gaza, which Israel then used to massacre them for their reporting.

The “New York War Crimes” dossier, written by the writers against the war in Gaza, noted that the New York Times smeared the Palestinian poet, professor, and commentator Reefat Alareer at the behest of the Israel lobby.

The dossier noted that Patrick Kingsley, the New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief from 2021 to 2025, “wrote a profile of the Palestinian poet, scholar, and teacher Refaat Alareer” adding, “when pro-Israel pressure groups like CAMERA argued that the profile had failed to accurately represent Alareer’s negative views on Israel, the Times appended a lengthy correction to demonize Alareer and delegitimize his perspective.”

Alareer was often targeted by Israel due to his effective communication of the Palestinian perspective to the world.

Alareer often used dark humor to mock Israel’s dehumanization of Palestinians, including during the start of the genocide in Gaza when he mocked the absurd and thoroughly debunked Israeli claim that Hamas “baked a baby in an oven” on Ocotber 7th, by saying “with or without baking powder” in response to the ludicrous claim.

The Zionist propagandist Bari Weiss, herself a former New York Times writer, took the joke out of context, saying, “Here is Refaat Alareer joking about whether or not an Israeli baby, burned alive in an oven, was cooked ‘with or without baking powder’”.

Bari effectively put a hit on Reefat Alareer through this smear, with her followers in the IDF messaging Alareer with open threats such as, “Send me your address. We are going to wipe you out in Gaza”, “When we get to Gaza, I personally will rape rawdog your old mother”, and “I’m going to expand your mom, wife, and child recktom in front of you”.

Alareer shared these messages and pointed out that Bari Weiss was trying to get him killed by the IDF, saying, :

If I get killed by Israeli bombs or my family is harmed, I blame Bari Weiss and her likes.

Many maniacal Israeli soldiers already bombing Gaza take these lies and smears seriously and they act upon them.

The IDF soon made good on their threats and murdered Alareer along with his brother, sister, and four of her children.

By repeating a smear of Alareer at the behest of Israel lobby groups, the New York Times took part in a smear campaign that eventually led to him and several members of his family being targeted and killed by the IDF.

This is not the only Israeli smear campaign the New York Times took part in.

In October of last year, the paper wrote an article titled, “Israel Accuses 6 Al Jazeera Reporters of Belonging to Militant Groups”, writing about fake documents fabricated by Israeli intelligence that falsely tied journalists working in Gaza to Hamas.

The New York Times article listed Anas al-Sharif and Hossam Shabat, who were later killed by Israel for their reporting on the genocide in Gaza.

The documents put out by Israel were soon proven to be fabrications.

The Israeli magazine 972 reported that, after October 7, Israeli intelligence established a “Legitimization Cell” which was “assigned to identify Gaza-based journalists it could portray as undercover Hamas operatives, in an effort to blunt growing global outrage over Israel’s killing of reporters,” quoting one inside source saying “The team regularly collected intelligence that could be used for hasbara”.

In the case of Hossam Shabat, he was killed by the IDF last April, with his family revealing that:

On the morning of March 24, 2025, Hossam left his tent alongside fellow journalists to begin their day of reporting. After driving for about one kilometer, they pulled over. Hossam stepped out to speak with a group of men nearby. Moments later, an Israeli surveillance drone launched a targeted strike.

The drone killed Hossam, the men he was speaking with, and his friend . As a surveillance drone, its use confirms that Hossam was deliberately tracked and targeted. The strike was intense and direct—Hossam was killed instantly, and the force of the blast tore both of his legs off in opposite directions.

He was assassinated by AI-powered, U.S.-funded weaponry—targeted simply for being a journalist in Gaza.

The IDF then boasted about killing Shabat, falsely labelling him a “Hamas terrorist”.

But the Israeli claims were thoroughly debunked.

Journalist Jeremy Scahill confirmed that Hamas, “conducted an internal audit—reviewing brigade records and interviewing members—which found Hossam Shabat was not a sniper, not in Qassam, and not affiliated with Hamas at all”.

Scahill noted, “Hamas typically claims its fighters publicly when they are killed—but in this case, they made clear: Shabat was not one of them.”

In the case of Anas Al-Sharif, who was also killed by the IDF along with five of his colleagues outside of Al Shifa hospital, the fabricated Israeli documents tying him to Hamas contained glaring contradictions.

As journalist Muhammad Shehada noted:

In the case of Al-Sharif, Israel released three documents that contradict each other. One, dated 2023, lists him as a “combatant” with his status described as “suspended” and “unassigned.” It highlights that he suffered incapacitating injuries in a training explosion that left him with “extremely weak hearing in the left ear, weak eyesight” and constant migraines and headaches.

Another from 2019 describes Al-Sharif as a “group leader” but lists his 17th birthday as the day he joined Hamas, despite the minimum age for membership being 18. And a third undated document suggests Al-Sharif was a member of Hamas’ Nukhba unit, the most elite combat division of the Al-Qassam brigades. But it is nearly impossible that someone with incapacitating injuries could join this unit, or would have previously been a member and then demoted to a foot soldier.

If Al-Sharif was part of Hamas, why did Israel release him after detaining and interrogating him in al-Shifa hospital, per Israeli journalist Amit Segal? Or why wasn’t he taken out earlier? For 22 months, Al-Sharif lived in the open, reported from the streets of Gaza, slept in tents in public spaces, and had his phone on him at all times — a far cry from the behavior of a dangerous militant, who would be under strict orders to operate under the radar.

The Israeli journalist Amit Segal even reported that Al Sharif was “detained by the IDF during the takeover of Shifa Hospital, but was later released,” something the IDF would not have done had he actually been a Hamas member.

Anas Al-Sharif’s brother later revealed that he was targeted and killed for his reporting, saying that, “Days before being killed in a targeted attack by Israeli forces, Anas al-Sharif was offered a deal: stop covering Gaza, and he and his family could leave safely”, adding that Al Sharif, “chose to keep reporting the truth until his last breath.”

While some basic journalistic due diligence proves the Israeli claims to be fabrications, the New York Times laundered them as fact.

The article even wrote, “In late July, Israel killed Ismail al-Ghoul, an Al Jazeera reporter in Gaza, in an airstrike, claiming that he was a member of Hamas’s military wing” without mentioning that the Israeli claims about Ismail al-Ghoul had been fully debunked.

As the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) documented, “Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail Al Ghoul was killed along with freelance camera operator Rami Al Refee near Gaza City by an Israeli drone strike on July 31, 2024” adding that “. The IDF alleges that Al Ghoul was an engineer in the Hamas Gaza Brigade and a member of Hamas’s Nukhba special forces” and “The Israel Defense Forces published a document—which they said was a record of Hamas’ military activity from 2021 discovered on a Hamas computer—as proof of their accusations”.

But as the CPJ noted, the document, “contained contradictory information showing that Al Ghoul, born in 1997, received a Hamas military ranking in 2007—when he would have been 10 years old.”

The CPJ also noted that, “the IDF released Al Ghoul after detaining him during the army’s March 18, 2024, raid on Al-Shifa hospital, which Al Jazeera said disproved the IDF’s ‘false claim of his affiliation with any organization’”.

By laundering Israel’s smears of journalists without debunking them, the New York Times played a role in spreading propaganda, which eventually got the journalists killed for their brave reporting on the genocide in Gaza on the ground.

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