The Jerusalem Post removed an article on Saturday that accused another outlet of misrepresenting a doll as a dead Palestinian baby.
After the article was originally published, social media users assailed the Post, arguing that the image did indeed depict a human infant.
The Post issued a statement following the retraction blaming the issue on “faulty sourcing.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“The article in question did not meet our editorial standards and was thus removed. We take this matter seriously and will be handling it internally in order to prevent similar incidents from reoccurring,” the statement continued. “We regret this incident and remain committed to upholding the highest journalistic standards at all times.”
The original article, which is still viewable on an internet archive, claimed that Al Jazeera “had published on X footage of an emotional man holding a ‘baby’ with a blurred face wrapped in white.”
The post included details about the month-and-a-half-old infant’s alleged death in Gaza: “[He] was martyred in the hands of his mother, after an Israeli bombing targeted the family home in the Al-Mughraqa area.”
In truth, the Post asserted, the footage showed little more than a children’s doll.
The outlet projected total confidence in its analysis, insisting that the footage was “doctored.”
“It is unclear if Al Jazeera had edited the footage themselves in an attempt to deliberately mislead the public or if they had shared the footage without properly researching the background. However, despite numerous people contacting the site about the falsified footage, the X post has remained published,” the article declared.
In a section of the story labeled “The bias of Al Jazeera,” the Post called its rival “pro-Hamas” and said that it has been “heavily criticized since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack.” (Al Jazeera is funded by the government of Qatar, though the outlet has said it is editorially independent.)
The war between Israel and Gaza continues to escalate. On Friday, negotiations over a new ceasefire fell through, and Hamas fighters launched rockets into Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes hammered portions of the Gaza Strip, leading to at least 200 deaths, local officials said.
