Western media promoted a UN report as proof Hamas sexually assaulted Israelis. Yet the report’s authors admitted they couldn’t locate a single victim, suggested Israeli officials staged a rape scene, and denounced “inaccurate forensic interpretations.”
On March 4, the United Nations released a report into sexual violence which has supposedly taken place amid the Israeli war on Gaza. The report was immediately celebrated in mainstream media outlets as proof of what scores of Israel lobbyists and journalists under their sway have insisted for months (despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary): that Hamas forces engaged in a systematic campaign of rape during their attack on Israel on October 7.
There was just one problem. The report’s authors flatly contradicted the idea that any evidence existed to prove a campaign of rape by Hamas.
Many legacy media outlets papered over this inconvenient fact with a few clever tweaks of language. The Associated Press, for example, repackaged claims of rape at Kibbutz Be’eri — which the UN report dismissed as “unfounded” — as “allegations of rape that could not yet be verified.”
The AP wasn’t the only outlet to indulge in such creative writing. A March 5 New York Times headline insisted the UN report had uncovered the sought-after “Evidence of Sexual Assault in Hamas-Led Attack on Israel.”
But following a social media post by The Grayzone’s editor-in-chief, Max Blumenthal, the Times quietly amended its headline to read: “UN Team Finds Grounds to Support Reports of Sexual Violence in Hamas Attack.”
Hellbound and Down 