During the early hours Tuesday in the Middle East, Israel resumed its pummeling of Hamas targets after Hamas rejected one proposal after another to continue peace talks and release more hostages they kidnapped on October 7, 2023. Predictably, the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC blamed Israel for having “shatter[ed]” a “fragile ceasefire” and ensured “war has returned to the Gaza Strip” with hundreds dead...according to Hamas.
“Israel shatters a cease-fire with deadly airstrikes after it says Hamas refused to release hostages,” CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King declared in the “Eye Opener.”
“Overnight, Israel launched the first major airstrikes on Gaza since the ceasefire. Hundreds are dead, we’re told. That’s according to Hamas officials there. Israel’s government blamed Hamas for a breakdown in negotiations to free the hostages,” King later said in tossing to foreign correspondent Ramy Inocencio in Tel Aviv.
Inocencio lamented the “shock in Gaza after that — those surprise overnight attacks...after a couple of weeks of failed negotiations to extend that ceasefire and to get the release of more hostages.”
He then went into to full sob story mode with plenty of overnight footage from Gaza (likely from Gaza-based and thus Hamas-approved producer Marwan al-Ghoul) (click “expand”):
The fragile ceasefire, barely two months old, was shattered in the early hours of the morning as the Israeli military launched dozens of airstrikes up and down the Gaza Strip. The injured and the dead rushed by the hundreds to barely functioning hospitals. Babies, children, and the elderly treated wherever doctors could find space. In the hysteria, a horse towing a cart of wounded Palestinians crashed. After more than 17 months of war, hospitals and morgues are overflowing once again. As morning broke, Gazans sat stunned amid the dead after the terror of the night. Final moments with loved ones lost in silent grief. This father held his dead daughter in one last embrace. “We were sleeping and the airstrike woke us up,” said Mohamed. “We kept searching for her and praise to God we pulled her body from under the rubble.”
Of course, he made sure to take the animalistic terror group’s spin that they’re “blaming Israel for breaking the original ceasefire agreement” despite noting in the very next thought that Hamas has said the strikes are “‘a death sentence’ for the remaining hostages.”
NBC’s Today wasn’t really any better. Co-host Craig Melvin also teased “ceasefire shattered” and said this meant “hundreds killed as Israel carries out its deadliest attack in months and issues a new warning to Hamas: release all remaining hostages or else.”
Foreign correspondent Matt Bradley had predictable framing and taking Hamas’s word on fatalities, hook, line, and sinker:
[T]he Israelis say they’re striking Hamas military targets, but Palestinian health authorities in the Gaza Strip, which is ruled by Hamas, say well more than 400 people have already been killed. Today, war has returned to the Gaza Strip. Hours after Israel resumed strikes across the enclave, now the fragile cease-fire and hostage deal negotiated by the U.S. shattered.
“Rescuers workers reported attacks on homes and camps. The IDF saying it’s targeting military commanders, and infrastructure. The U.S. has engaged in unprecedented diplomacy to reach a ceasefire to war...But there have been yawning gaps between Hamas and the Israelis. The White House saying overnight that Israel consulted them before resuming the strikes,” he added.
Bradley at least pointed out there’s still 59 hostages in Gaza with “about 35 of those are dead” and one remaining “one living American, 21-year-old Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander.”
Asked by Melvin to expound upon the negotiations, Bradley tried to blame Israel:
[T]he real question was how to move on from the first phase of that ceasefire that ended March 1. The Israelis wanted to continue and extend that first phase, continuing exchanging hostages in the Gaza Strip for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. While Hamas, they wanted to move on to the second phase of the ceasefire, which would eventually see the full withdraw of Israeli troops on the Gaza Strip and a more permanent truce[.]
ABC’s Good Morning America also used the word “shattered,” thanks to co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos.
Chief global affairs anchor Martha Raddatz was forlorn: “There had been hope for the release of the remaining hostages, that ceasefire could hold. But this morning, make no mistake. A major Israeli assault on Hamas is once again underway. This morning, the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hamas over.”
She hit similar notes as CBS and NBC (click “expand”):
Israel launching a wave of deadly air strikes across the Gaza Strrip, lighting up Gaza just after 2:30 a.m. local time in the largest assault on Hamas targets since the ceasefire took effect nearly two months ago. [EXPLOSIONS] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordering the IDF to take forceful action against Hamas after the terror group refused to release more hostages. Netanyahu calling for continued, extensive strikes. [SIREN] Explosions could be heard throughout Gaza. More than 400 people killed and more than 500 injured, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. A number of people are trapped under the rubble, so that number is expected to rise. Hamas saying Netanyahu has overturned the ceasefire agreement. For six weeks, there has been relative calm in the region, with the return of about three dozen hostages in exchange for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. That first phase of the ceasefire ended two weeks ago. Since then, negotiations have stalled, with neither side able to agree on a path forward. The second phase was supposed to see the release of nearly 60 hostages and bring an end to the 17-month war that began with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 of 2023.
Raddatz also brought up Alexander (though not by name) and, after fretting “[t]his new round of fighting will undoubtedly deepen the humanitarian crisis within Gaza,” conceded “Hamas has rejected all of the proposals it received from President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff.”
To see the relevant transcripts from March 18, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
