The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza immediately blamed last Tuesday’s explosion on an Israeli airstrike amid a war that erupted when the Palestinian terror group killed over 1,400 people in Israel in a devastating onslaught. Hamas provided no evidence to back up the false claim, or for its claim that hundreds had been killed.
In the ensuing hours, Israel produced evidence showing the explosion was caused by a failed rocket launch from Gaza at Israel by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, an assessment endorsed by the United States, which has said it has its own data that supports it. Islamic Jihad denies the accusation.
While the New York Times story was updated as time went on, “editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified,” the editors’ note read.
The initial reports “relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified,” it said. “The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was.”
An investigation by the Wall Street Journal has backed Israel’s version of events, as have assessments by CNN and the Associated Press.
The White House said that an intelligence assessment showed Israel was not responsible and US President Joe Biden said that the blast “appears as though it was done by the other team.”
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