"Conflicting claims" - NYT gives equal weight between rapists and a professional army

Here's how the New York Times reported on the attack on Jabalya yesterday:

The two sides gave conflicting accounts of a deadly Israeli airstrike in the Jabaliya community north of Gaza City, site of a long-established and densely populated refugee camp, where photographs taken on Tuesday showed at least one large blast crater that was not present in earlier satellite images, and significant damage to buildings.

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry said that the strike had killed and wounded hundreds of people. Dr. Marwan Sultan, medical director of the nearby Indonesian Hospital, said there were dozens dead and his facility had received hundreds of injured patients. The figures could not be verified.

The Israeli military said the strike had killed a Hamas commander who was a key plotter of the Oct. 7 assault on Israel that the Israeli authorities say killed more than 1,400 people and captured more than 200 hostages.

The commander, Ibrahim Biari, was actively directing attacks against Israeli targets from a “vast underground tunnel complex,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the Israeli military, said in a late-night briefing. He said that in Israel’s estimation, “dozens” of Hamas combatants were killed along with him when the underground complex imploded.

Hamas denied that any of its commanders were in the area of the strike.

So even-handed!

According to Israel, a major military target was attacked. In the photo you can see the airstrikes appear to be along a path that follows the "alleged" tunnels underneath the camp - which is known as a Hamas stronghold. They identified a specific person and verified his death. They are confident enough that he was killed that they are saying it definitively and publicly. If he pops up in a video, Israel's entire credibility is lost.

According to Hamas, Israel just decided to murder hundreds of civilians for no reason and there were no Hamas members there. 

The photo above shows that the craters are all in the street, which is where tunnels would generally be. If Israel wanted to murder civilians in Jabaliya, why aim at the street?  And I'm no military forensics expert, but the craters indicate that there was an empty space fairly deep underneath the ground which collapsed. 

Only one narrative makes sense. The other is obvious propaganda, although it is likely that dozens of civilians did die. 

Like any country at war, Israel is not going to reveal its intelligence. It is not going to give details of its strategy, tactics or methods. But only one story makes any sense, and the track record of Israeli statements like this is far better than that of Hamas. 

Beyond that, Israel has made its military goals clear: it intends to destroy Hamas. Hamas' cynical use of human shields to protect its tunnels is the only war crime here, and Israel has given redicents weeks to evacuate. It has done everything properly under international law, and it is not obligated to wait indefinitely to target Hamas military targets. This is the most salient fact that the media consistently ignores. 

Giving equal weight to both sides, and ignoring the international law of one side, isn't journalism - it is a betrayal of informing the readers of the truth. 

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