On Sunday, Israel released surveillance footage from Al-Shifa Hospital of Hamas dragging hostages into the facility against their will. It also gave CNN’s Oren Liebermann an opportunity to visit the newly discovered tunnels it found on campus, but Liebermann still claimed on Monday’s CNN This Morning that Israel has not met the burden of proof to justify its claims and continued to simply repeat Hamas’s claims on the matters.
As footage from the security cameras rolled, Liebermann reported, “But they also released video of two other hostages. Take a look at this. This is from October 7th. They say it shows a Nepali citizen who was taken hostage and a Thai citizen who was taken hostage, brought into the hospital itself on the day of the attack, shortly after it happened.”
The footage clearly showed one hostage struggling to resist his captors, but Liebermann still uncritically repeated that, “Hamas has actually responded to this, even -- not specifically to these videos, but acknowledging they brought hostages to the hospital because they say their health was meticulously monitored before they were taken to their places of detention.”
As for the tunnels, “This is not proof of a Hamas command center or headquarters under the hospital, but Israel continues trying to build its case that Hamas uses the sanctuary of the hospital for cover which Hamas and hospital officials have denied.”
What more evidence does CNN need? It’s a serious question because this is the same outlet that tried to suggest that one IDF video showing one AK-47 at Al-Shifa and a second video showing a second AK-47 was a grave discrepancy.
Second of all, hospital staff denied that Hamas has been used by Hamas for military purposes, yet the earlier video showed hospital staff clearly present not to mention the weapons previously found on site. There are also the recollections of a British doctor who used to work at Al-Shifa that he was liable to be shot if he went to areas of the hospital that were implicitly understood to be for non-medical use.
Simply repeating Hamas talking points twice is bad enough, but Liebermann tried a third time, “The IDF’s ability to continue its operation in Gaza and the credibility of Israel are at stake here as the number killed in the fighting surpasses 12,000, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.”
How are we almost to day 50 of this war with journalists still doing this? The ministry’s numbers do not differentiate between combatants and non-combatants or whether the non-combatants died as the result of a Hamas or PIJ misfire which makes them, by definition, inaccurate because it is supposed to imply for uniformed ears that every single one is a civilian that died as a result of an Israeli action.
Tying it all together, Liebermann declared that, “The IDF says one of its missions is to destroy Hamas, but with international criticism mounting, Israel has to show the terror organization is using Gaza civilians and infrastructure as cover to justify an ongoing war.”
Well, at least he called Hamas a terror organization.
Here is a transcript for the November 20 show:
CNN This Morning
11/20/2023
7:32 AM ET
OREN LIEBERMANN: But they also released video of two other hostages. Take a look at this. This is from October 7th. They say it shows a Nepali citizen who was taken hostage and a Thai citizen who was taken hostage, brought into the hospital itself on the day of the attack, shortly after it happened.
Now, Hamas has actually responded to this, even -- not specifically to these videos, but acknowledging they brought hostages to the hospital because they say their health was meticulously monitored before they were taken to their places of detention.
…
LIEBERMANN: This is not proof of a Hamas command center or headquarters under the hospital, but Israel continues trying to build its case that Hamas uses the sanctuary of the hospital for cover which Hamas and hospital officials have denied. The IDF’s ability to continue its operation in Gaza and the credibility of Israel are at stake here as the number killed in the fighting surpasses 12,000, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health. The IDF says one of its missions is to destroy Hamas, but with international criticism mounting, Israel has to show the terror organization is using Gaza civilians and infrastructure as cover to justify an ongoing war.
