Washington Post Publishes Retraction of Gaza Aid Story

Wednesday, 4 June 2025 | The Washington Post drew widespread criticism for sharing one of its articles on social media and posting that “at least 31 people were killed” in Gaza “according to the Strip’s health ministry, when Israeli troops opened fire on crowds making their way to collect aid.” The Post deleted the post, after it had been viewed some 2.4 million times, and it received fresh criticism for its statement about that deletion and its corrections to the article.  

The paper stated that the “article failed to make clear if attributing the deaths to Israel was the position of the Gaza health ministry or a fact verified by the Post” and that it made changes to clarify “that there was no consensus about who was responsible for the shootings and that there was a dispute over that question.” 

It added that though it quoted statements from Israel, that an inquiry said that soldiers didn’t fire at civilians, the paper “didn’t give proper weight to Israel’s denial and gave improper certitude about what was known about any Israeli role in the shootings.” 

“The early versions fell short of Post standards of fairness and should not have been published in that form,” it stated. 

The Post article doesn’t note that Hamas, a US-designated terror organization, controls the health ministry in Gaza. 

“Notice the Washington Post always makes errors in one direction: in Hamas’s favor,” stated Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.). “Far-left media outlets are more concerned with attacking Israel than reporting the facts.” 

“Isn’t it funny that of all the corrections the Washington Post has made since October 7, 2023, it has yet to say it fell short of its fairness standards by failing to ‘give proper weight’ to Hamas’s version of events?” wrote Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, called the paper “fake news.” 

David Friedman, a former US ambassador to Israel, stated that the update was “not good enough.” 

“Something this incendiary needs to be fact checked before published,” he stated. “People die from this kind of malpractice, and no one will even read the correction.” 

Victoria Coates, a vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, stated that “20 months of mindlessly parroting the Gaza ‘Ministry of Health’ lies with no change in behavior or embarrassment at being caught in this shoddy fake journalism designed to demonize Israel” is “beyond insanity. It’s malfeasance.” 

The Post article carries Miriam Berger’s, Abbie Cheeseman’s, Louisa Loveluck’s and Hazem Balousha’s bylines. 

“More proof of how broken the Washington Post‘s Israel-Gaza coverage is post-October. 7. Great reporters elsewhere at the paper—but this team keeps getting key facts wrong—and the slant is always against the same side,” stated Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Corrections after the damage is done aren’t good enough.” 

“Early in the conflict, maybe you could have argued ‘they got duped by Hamas.’ But given the years of corrections, I’m starting to wonder if Washington Post, like Hamas, is deliberately spreading anti-Israel propaganda knowing damage will be done before the correction,” wrote Philip Klein, the editor of National Review Online [NRO]. 

Noah Rothman, a senior writer at NRO, wrote that “in as many weeks, we’ve had three stories now that anyone curious enough to call themselves a reporter should have instantly questioned: the ongoing Gaza famine typified by abundant pasta, the 14,000 dead babies in 48 hours claim and now, the notion that IDF-protected, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation-monitored aid distribution sites are secret kill boxes into which Palestinian civilians are being deliberately corralled.” 

“You didn’t have to be a sleuth to see the errors. You didn’t have to be unusually incredulous to hear UN officials insisting only the United Nations could properly distribute aid to identify the bias at work,” he stated. “You just had to subordinate your intense distaste for Israel to the facts. That has proven a bridge too far for much of the global journalistic establishment.” 

“Goes without saying, but it’s striking that Washington Post journalists make what used to be career-ending factual errors about the Gaza War, always in an anti-Israel and pro-Hamas direction,” stated Omri Ceren, legislative director and a former foreign-policy adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “It’s even more striking that they’re allowed by the paper to keep making them.” 

“Another day, another quiet correction. The damage is done—but hey, at least the Washington Post rewrote the headline after it spread across the globe,” stated Tal Naim, a spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in Washington. “In times of war, the media’s first responsibility is accuracy. Lives depend on it.”