Palestinians wearing protective face masks sit at Shifa Hospital, amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, in Gaza City, Nov. 22, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Mohammed Salem.

In the wake of horrific mass terror attacks on October 7 against southern Israeli communities, in which 1,400 Israelis were murdered by terrorists from Hamas-ruled Gaza, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of the territory, including the electricity that Israel supplied to Gaza through 10 transmission lines.

Hamas-controlled heath authorities have been claiming — for weeks — that Gaza hospitals will have to close in a day or two due to lack of power, and this has been repeated by numerous media outlets.

But what Hamas is omitting is that there is enough energy to power the hospitals, thanks in part to a UN/WHO program Gaza hospitals have extensive solar panel installations on their roofs, which can supply a substantial portion of their power needs.

Israel has also said it will re-evaluate its policies if it believes the hospital will actually run out of power (despite the fact, that this would be because Hamas is diverting its fuel to attack Israel, not power the hospital).

A representative example of such deceptive reporting is from Margherita Stancati of The Wall Street Journal, who wrote on November 4 that:

At Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, there’s only enough fuel to power the neonatal intensive-care unit, said Marwan Abusada, a senior surgeon there. Electricity was switched off in most of the rest of the hospital on Thursday, leaving 205 injured patients in wards with no light or power, he said.

So virtually no power in Shifa Hospital on November 4, with electricity switched off to most of the hospital.

How then to explain this video, posted by Hamas media, of the scene outside Shifa Hospital on November 4, showing perhaps a thousand people watching and cheering projected videos supposedly showing Hamas destroying IDF vehicles, with the lights on in many rooms of the hospital, the entrance ablaze with light, and many of the spectators holding up working cell phones.

The caption of the video, translated from Arabic, is “The joy of mourners in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital as they watch videos of the Al-Qassam Brigades destroying a number of occupation vehicles in Gaza.”

How are those many rooms lit up, and how are those cell phones getting charged, if there is no power in Gaza and no power at the hospital?

Maybe The Wall Street Journal should ask these questions of its Gaza-based reporters, who are almost certainly Hamas activists with press passes. Maybe Western journalists should be a little more skeptical about what doctors and “reporters” in a dictatorial regime tell them, when the dictators clearly have no compunctions about killing people.

Alex Safian is the Associate Director and Research Director at CAMERA, where a version of this article first appeared.