How Media Outlets Covered Israel's Massacre of Palestinian Medics

A look at how the BBC, NPR, NYT and AP News covered Israel's execution of Palestinian rescue workers and medics in Gaza on 23 March 2025

I'm grateful that the post I did on how The BBC, The Times and The Guardian reported on the recent Le Pen news got a good amount of attention and positive feedback. I admit that I was nervous because I remain a migrant journalist and criticizing the big outlets is rarely good for one's career. Before continuing, please consider subscribing to this newsletter if you'd like to see more of these types of post. My goal is to write at least twice weekly if not more regularly. If you got disposable income, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

---

Before starting, the usual disclaimer: the critique presented is not meant to be a criticism of the journalists themselves. As I've explained on my Bsky account, the reason I focus on headlines is because most people only read those. That's not the journalists’ fault. It's a problem with the media ecosystem we currently live in. But that's why what gets included and excluded in headlines - as well as the first few paragraphs - matters so much.

This post was originally written in the form of a Bsky thread.

The story:

Israel massacred Palestinian rescue workers and medics in Gaza on the 23rd of March 2025. The IDF executed them one by one, buried the ambulances and UN vehicle, and then dumped the bodies in a mass grave. The Guardian's Lorenzo Tondo, Malak A Tantesh, Julian Border, Bryony Moore and Tural Ahmedzade published a useful timeline of the events with videos and I urge everyone reading this to check it out.

The Israelis opened fire on a convoy that included “ambulances, a fire truck, health ministry vehicles and a UN car.” That's a war crime. As the Guardian timeline also explains, it took four days for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) to reach the site of the massacre. On their way:

“While en route, the Ocha team see a woman being shot, the bullet hitting her in the back of the head, and a man who is trying to retrieve her also being shot.”

This story is yet another example of Israeli savagery in Gaza. There are no rules of war. Israel has broken all imaginable international laws in its 18-months long genocide in Gaza, ongoing at the time of writing.

On April 5th, media outlets started reporting on a video that was released. These initial reports are the ones I’m critiquing here, and I will hopefully be able to explain why.

Channel 4

The Channel 4 headline was straightforward: “new Gaza medic attack video contradicts Israel military claims.” It's useful to start with this one because it shows how simple writing a headline can be. Channel 4 simply states the facts. The Israeli military made claims. Those claims have been contradicted by the video. Simple. Channel 4 sees no reason to add doubt, because there is no doubt.

The BBC

The BBC added the words ‘appears to.’ The headline: “New Gaza media attack video contradicts Israel military claims.”

There are a number of problems with this. First, there is no reason to add ‘appears to.’ The video leaves no room for doubt. The Israelis lied. Even the NYT, which is the 4th on this list, published an investigation that makes it clear. Again: the Israelis shot at ambulances and a UN vehicle, executed rescue workers and medics one by one, dumped their bodies in a mass grave, and then buried the vehicles.

Not only does the BBC add ‘appears to,’ casting doubt where there is none, but the headline itself does not even say who killed those rescue workers and medics. You can infer, of course, that it's the Israelis. You also very likely know that Israel has troops on the ground in Gaza, but the question remains: why not just say that the Israelis killed those rescue workers and medics? At the very least, why not do what Channel 4 did and simply state that the uncovered video clearly debunks Israeli claims. In other words, the Israelis lied.

NPR

NPR goes the extra mile. The headline: “Palestinian medics say a video of Gaza rescue crews under fire refutes Israeli claims.” Now it's about two sides making competing claims. On the one side you have Palestinian rescue workers and medics - in fact, the UN was also shot at and also accused Israel of massacring the rescue workers and medics - and on the other side you have the Israelis. The story is less specific. There is no way to tell, from the headline, who is right.

The attached text does not make things clearer: “Palestinian medical officials say they obtained video footage that refutes Israel's claims about the killing of 15 rescue and aid workers in the southern Gaza strip last month.” That's only part of the picture: the UN obtained that video too. Again, the UN was also shot at. The Israelis buried a UN vehicle alongside the Palestinian ambulances.

We also don't know what the Israeli claims actually are. You might reasonably argue that one can only write so much in a headline + lede. Of course, but the question remains why not just make it simpler like what Channel 4 did with their headline. The NPR headline is even longer (97 characters with spaces) than the Channel 4 one (67). So despite being longer, it does not inform more. Instead, it makes the story more ‘neutral’ which in this context means giving some benefit of the doubt to the Israelis even as the story itself is about how the Israelis lied.

The NYT

The NYT is arguably the most egregious one of the lot because the article itself is a clear investigation into what happened. But if you only read the headlines - and, remember, most people only read headlines + lede, and the NYT knows that - you get this: “Video shows aid workers killed in Gaza under gunfire barrage, with ambulance lights on.” You may not be familiar, but this is a longstanding problem with NYT coverage of Gaza. Let's dig in.

The headline does not mention who killed those rescue workers and medics at all. It just says “aid workers killed in Gaza.” The passive tense is regularly used by the NYT when covering Gaza. Instead of saying “Israel killed aid workers in Gaza” they write “aid workers killed in Gaza.” Who killed them? Israel is the only accused party here since it's the only one killing Palestinian rescue workers and medics. It certainly is the only party that shot at the ambulances and UN vehicle, that executed the rescue workers and medics one by one, dumped their bodies in a mass grave and then buried the vehicles.

The lede includes more information than the headline, but in a way that still leaves open questions. We'll get into it now, but first: the NYT headline is 96 characters with spaces. That's roughly the same as the NPR one, and still longer than the Channel 4 one. As with NPR, the NYT used more words to say less. They didn't even use the word ‘Israeli’ while NPR did. The NYT were even vaguer than NPR.

The lede reads: “The U.N. has said Israel killed the workers. The video appears to contradict Israel's version of events, which said the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously” without headlights or emergency signals.” We're at 243 characters now, plenty of space to explain things.

Let's dissect it. “The UN has said Israel killed the workers.” The UN did say that, but more importantly the video that the NYT itself reported on showed that. It's not merely a matter of claims. The video, as the NYT's own investigation showed, clearly proves that the Israelis lied.

It continues: “The video appears to contradict Israel's version of evenst.” Here's those two words again: “appears to.” It's followed by “Israel's version of events.” So there is more than one version of events? The only version isn't the one that the Palestinians and the UN said happened? The one that the video clearly proved right?

It continues: “which [Israel] said the vehicles were ‘advancing suspiciously’ without headlights or emergency signals.” How do vehicles advance suspiciously? Were they driving backwards while yelling “we are Hamas”? Were they flying? Did they transform into giant transformers?

This is what Israel does, and it doesn't work without media complicity: they commit a crime, and they put out a claim. When the claim is debunked, they shift to saying that they will investigate the matter. 18 months of this. This scenario has been replicated hundreds of times already, and yet media outlets like the NYT continue to report Israel's claims as a ‘version of events.’

The NYT even juxtaposes two contradictions: the headline says that the ambulance lights were on. The lede says that Israel claimed the ambulance lights were of. So, Israel lied. There are no other scenarios here, no other “version of events” that can be the truth.

To be clear, including the Israeli claim is not suspicious in itself because you can mention the claim to highlight what is being contradicted. But they didn’t do that: they instead mentioned the Israeli claim after presenting the story as having more than one “version of events.”

The could have been reasonable if: the story had just come out. It hadn't. It came out on March 23rd. We already knew everything we knew minus the video for a week or so. Palestinians and the UN discovered the buried vehicles on March 27th, “the UN vehicle and the fire truck crushed and partially buried.” (Quotes from the Guardian timeline here). One civil defence worker's body was also found then. The next day, March 28th, they “found the body of its team leader there, as well as an ambulance and the Red Crescent’s fire truck.” On March 30th, they found “the bodies of eight Red Crescent workers, the five other civil defence responders and one UN staff member buried in a mass grave.” A ninth Red Crescent worker “remains unaccounted for” meaning the Israelis either took him dead or alive or the UN and Palestinians have not yet managed to find his body. That's also when the head of Ocha in Palestine said that the medics were shot “one by one.”

The NYT investigation was released on April 4th, 5 days after it was revealed by the UN that the Palestinian rescue workers and medics were executed by the Israelis. Three days after two witnesses revealed to the Guardian that “some of the bodies recovered from the grave had had their hands or feet tied” because, again, the rescue workers and medics were executed one by one.

With that in mind, let us summarize the NYT headline + lede. First, aid workers in Gaza were under a gunfire barrage by someone. We don't know who. At this stage, it's understandable not to include, for example, that the rescue workers and medics were executed one by one. The headline is about the video itself. If the lede was just about that as well, one would be able to argue that not mentioning the executions would be reasonable. After all, they can only include so much in a lede.

The problem is that they did include more than the video itself in the lede. The NYT mentions that the UN “has said Israel killed the workers.” As we saw in the Guardian investigation, it's not ‘just’ the UN that said that. Witnesses said that too. So the NYT editors were fine with including the wider event here: Israel didn't just open fire at ambulances and a UN vehicle - itself a war crime. The UN said those rescue workers and medics were executed.

Put it all together and we can question the NYT's decision to include the Israeli ‘version of events’ in the lede despite the fact that their own headline contradicts that ‘version.’ There is a word to describe this, one which is perfectly understood in the English language: lied. The Israelis lied. They simply lied.

So despite the 339 (96 headline + 243 lede) characters used, the NYT made the story less clear. They could have made it clear. For example, the headline could have been: “Video shows Israeli forces killing aid workers in Gaza.” That's 63 characters. We can make it 95 characters: Video shows Israeli forces killing aid workers in Gaza, debunking earlier Israeli claims.

How about the lede? Let's try this: “Video contradicts Israeli claims, proving correct claims made by Palestinian rescue workers and medics and the UN.” So much shorter, 61 characters. You get the gist here. Options were - and still are - available. Presenting the story in a way that plants doubt where there is none is an editorial decision.

Compare that NYT headline with this random one I found on their homepage:

I think you would agree that the claims made in that headline are abstract. Trump's actions are described as weakening cyberdefenses and the moment we live in is one of “rising danger.” The NYT is perfectly comfortable taking a stand here. There are no ‘appears to’ here. It doesn't ‘appear’ like Trump is weakening cyberdefenses. Trump is weakening cyberdefenses. That headline is ‘harsher’ than one describing a massacre of rescue workers and medics.

This is not a matter of journalistic ethics. It’s a matter of editorial policy.

What I want to show with these pieces is that these are decisions made: which words are chosen, and why? Do the chosen words explain, or do they confuse? If they confuse, why not choose the words that explain instead?

Let's recap on last time.

The story: Israel killed rescue workers and medics in Gaza, and then dumped their bodies in a mass grave. Israel did do that. The evidence, as even those outlets state, is fairly straightforward. We have the video. The Israelis lied about what happened. The Palestinians and the United Nations told the truth.

There is such a thing as the facts of a news story, and these are the facts. Outlets choose to state and explain them, or obfuscate them, but they always choose. Unless they’ve delegated this task to an AI, this decision has someone or a group of people behind it.

With every headline - and this is an exercise we can all do - we can ask simple questions such as: is there a reason for adding words that can add doubt, like ‘appears to’, when the story itself leaves little room for doubt?

If you read the NYT article, there is no doubt: the Israelis lied. They did kill those rescue workers and medics. If you read the NYT headline and top paragraph - where most people stop reading - you do not know for certain. That is an editorial decision.

AP News

After publishing that initial thread, I saw a headline from AP News:

The headline reads: “Israel walks back its account of the killing of 15 rescue workers and medics in Gaza after video seems to contradict it.” The lede reads “Israel's military says the incident is under thorough investigation. The initial account of the vehicles not having emergency lights on was mistaken, an Isreali military official said.”

If you've made it this far, what AP News did may anger you. If it does, I'm doing my job correctly. Just read what they wrote, and how they wrote it. Both headlines and lede start with Israel: Israel walks back and Israel's military says. The lede even continues with the Israeli military saying their initial account was ‘mistaken.’

There is no justification for what AP News did here. They didn't even include Palestinians or the UN in either headline or the lede. They obfuscated the full story.

Here's everything AP News did not include: the Israelis opened fire at the vehicles. The Israelis executed the rescue workers and medics - again, one by one. The Israelis buried the vehicles. The Israelis dumped the bodies in a mass grave.

If you only read the headline you would be forgiven for believing that some honest mistake occurred here.

The BBC, Again

And don't worry, the BBC is willing to take that extra step. Look at this headline:

“Israel admits mistakes over medic killings in Gaza.” Mistakes. The Israelis did an oopsie by opening fire on ambulances and a UN vehicle, they did an oopsie by executing rescue workers and medics one by one, they did an oopsie by dumping their bodies in a mass grave, and they did an oopsie by burying the vehicles.

The BBC published that yesterday morning, April 6th. Two weeks had passed since the massacre. Three days since that Guardian timeline. Two days since that NYT investigation.

This is not journalism.