Eighty Media Outlets Issue Correction on AP Story That Inflated Gaza Civilian Death Toll

More than 80 media outlets with forced to issue a correction after running an Associated Press story that alleged that 40,000 civilians had been killed in the Gaza Strip.

An August 18 AP story said that Vice President Kamala Harris had been “vocal” about the need to protect civilians in the Israel-Hamas war, and that the “civilian death toll has now exceeded 40,000.”

But “not even Hamas has alleged that more than 40,000 Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been killed in the war between Israel and the terror organization,” according to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), which monitors Arab media.

“While the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported over 40,000 total deaths among Gaza’s residents, its data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israeli sources, meanwhile, estimate that over 17,000 of those killed are Hamas combatants,” it said.

AP appended a correction to its story on August 19.

The outlet also revised the article’s text to say “More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the territory’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry says, but how many are civilians is unknown. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. Israel says it has killed more than 17,000 militants in the war.”

Media outlets who carried the wire service’s article also issued corrections.

But CAMERA said that NBC affiliates in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York had still not made the correction three days after being notified.

Tamas Sternthal, who leads CAMERA’s Israel office, said in a statement that “AP’s grossly inflated and unfounded civilian casualty figure fuels pernicious false narratives accusing Israel of genocide, further inflaming the conflict.”

“One AP error can distort public understanding globally and contribute to an escalation of hostilities,” Sternthal said.

The AP won a photo contest for its photo of Hamas terrorists parading an Israeli woman’s lifeless body through the streets — a shot that it reportedly managed to obtain because its freelance photographer, Ali Mahmud, accompanied Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis.

“Many of these photos allude to photographer’s previous knowledge and possible involvement of the massive attack launched on Israeli soil – in order to get the ‘shot of a lifetime,'” The Jerusalem Post reported.

The wire service also published images of the Hamas attack credited to Hassan Eslaiah, who was reportedly captured on film being kissed on the cheek by Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza.

The AP infamously shared office space with Hamas, an arrangement that suggests the AP was complicit in, or at best aware of, the terror group’s presence. Hamas frequently operates out of civilian-dense buildings, like hospitals, and then claims Israel was targeting civilians.

Israeli forces destroyed the high-rise containing the AP’s Gaza bureau in May 2021, after notifying occupants to evacuate the building. In its coverage of the bombing, the AP insisted that Israel “did not provide evidence for the claims” that Hamas was operating out of the building and using the AP staff as “human shields.”