AP Caught Lying About Knowledge on Hamas Military Headquarters in Gaza

Marmee Rooke

The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is working tirelessly to defend its country from the over 3,000 rockets launched by Hamas and its counterpart Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) over the past seven days. This weekend, the IDF took out a Jala Tower, which housed some Hamas military.

The Associated Press (AP) quickly spread a false story that the Israeli Air Force successfully hit its target Jala Tower because it housed the media companies AP and Al Jazeera. The Associated Press CEO Gary Pruitt claimed that his company had no idea that Hamas was the AP’s neighbor. Pruitt also falsely claimed that the Israeli Defense Force failed to warn the media outlets on the building becoming a potential military target.

“We are shocked and horrified that the Israeli military would target and destroy the building housing AP’s bureau and other news organizations in Gaza,” Pruitt’s statement said. “The world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today.”

However, contrary proof recently resurfaced in a 2014 Atlantic article by Matti Friedman. His report claimed that the AP was not only aware that Hamas was in proximity of the building and that the terrorist organization used the press as human shields, but even worse, the AP refused to report on Hamas’s acts of terror.

“Hamas’s strategy is to provoke a response from Israel by attacking from behind the cover of Palestinian civilians, thus drawing Israeli strikes that kill those civilians, and then to have the casualties filmed by one of the world’s largest press contingents, with the understanding that the resulting outrage abroad will blunt Israel’s response,” writes Matti Friedman.

Another excerpt: “When Hamas’s leaders surveyed their assets before this summer’s round of fighting, they knew that among those assets was the international press. The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby – and the AP wouldn’t report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas.”

In Friedman’s article, he claimed that the AP staff were terrorized by Hamas militants who “would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff- and the AP wouldn’t report it.”

The video above shows a journalist laughing after realizing that Hamas launched a rocket from a floor below their office.

Legacy media isn’t the only one running cover for Hamas terrorists as the White House came out in a statement through Press Secretary Jen Psaki, saying that the “safety and security of journalists and independent media is a paramount responsibility.”

The IDF defended its decision to hit Jala Tower, saying, “The building housed the offices of civilian media, which the terrorist organization Hamas hides behind and uses as human shields. The terror organization Hamas deliberately places its military assets in the heart of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Prior to the attack, the IDF warned the civilians who were in the building and gave them sufficient time to evacuate.”

The IDF and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed to the Jerusalem Post that Israel produced proof to the Biden administration that dispelled the claims that the Israeli military did not give advanced notice that the building was an active military target. Furthermore, the Jerusalem Post reported that a senior diplomatic source said, “We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building. I understand they found the explanation satisfactory.”

PM Benjamin Netanyahu said,” We share all the intelligence with our American friends. The intelligence we had is about an intelligence office for [Hamas] housed in that building that plots and organizes terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians. It is a perfectly legit target.”

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