A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri / File.

Will the New York Times ever stop falling for the Gaza “hospitals threatened” Hamas publicity stunt?

The New York Times of Thursday February 15 resumed the newspaper’s preferred post-October 7 status as a kind of Gaza hospital trade association newsletter. “Hundreds Vacate Hospital in Fear of Israeli Attack,” is the lead, front-page headline.

The article carries the bylines of three Times journalists, with “reporting was contributed” credits for another seven, for a total of ten journalists. Among those contributing reporting is a newer name, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad. Her social media timeline is full of retweets of journalistically objective material such as “Across the country Zionists are beating, gassing, shooting, lynching Palestinians. They’re unhinged. The videos we’re seeing are reminiscent of the Nakba. State-settler collusion emboldening an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood & land. Terrorist, genocidal nation” and “IDF Soldier Recounts Harrowing, Heroic War Story Of Killing 8-Month-Old Child.”

You might think that by now the Times would have learned from its mistakes in terms of covering Gaza hospitals that turn out to be Hamas terrorist bases.

Back in October, the Times published an editors’ note confessing that editors “should have taken more care,” instead of falling for false Hamas claims blaming Israel for killing hundreds at Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.

Earlier this week, the Times even belatedly acknowledged about Al-Shifa Hospital that “Hamas used the hospital for cover, stored weapons inside it and maintained a hardened tunnel beneath the complex. The Times had obsessed about that hospital on its front page for weeks, passing along to its readers ritualistic denials from Hamas and the hospital’s leadership notwithstanding that they were transparently bogus.

This time around, with Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the Times dials up the Gaza hospital hype yet again. “Thousands of Gazans have sheltered at the Nasser Medical Complex in the southern city of Khan Younis for weeks, and many are terrified that Israeli forces will bombard or storm the complex, said Mohammed Abu Lehya, a doctor there,” the Times says. “Hanin Abu Tiba, 27, an English teacher sheltering at the hospital, described dire conditions inside, with food running out and aid convoys all but unable to deliver supplies.”

“We are all scared,” the Times quotes a radiologist named Dr. Mohammad Abu Moussa as saying.

“Terrified,” “dire,” “scared.” Get the emotional message? The Times also duly trots out the same World Health Organization officials that warned about the other hospitals that turned out to be Hamas headquarters. The whole Times framing is to accuse Israel for attacking the hospital, rather than to accuse the Hamas terrorist organization of using the hospital as cover.

The same doctors, English teacher, and World Health Organization official that the Times has access to for quoting about how scared they are of the Israelis are not asked by the Times, at least in the story, about whether they’ve seen any Israeli hostages. They are not asked, at least in the story, whether Hamas has used the hospital as a base. They aren’t asked, at least in the Times article, about whether they are scared of Hamas. They aren’t asked, at least in the Times article, what Hamas would do to them if they didn’t provide the New York Times with appropriately alarmist quotes that make Israel sound like the aggressor.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari announced late Thursday that Israel found hiding in the Nasser hospital complex “three confirmed terrorists,” including two who he said participated in the October 7 attack, among dozens of other suspects. The IDF also released interrogation video in which a captured Hamas operative described ten hostages being held in Nasser hospital.

Perhaps a few months from now the Times will get around, as it did with Al-Shifa, to acknowledging that the hospital was being used as a terrorist hiding place, and that the physicians being quoted in the Times article were probably well aware of that.

As a business strategy, there may be some kind of short-term upside to this approach. The Times gets traffic from the Israel-haters sharing the story about those cruel Israelis targeting a hospital and causing the “dire” conditions. And then, months later, it later gets traffic from the pro-Israel crowd sharing the eventual acknowledgement that, yes, the hospital was a terrorist nest. But there’s a cost to the newspaper’s credibility. Readers who expect the Times overall to serve consistently as a skeptical, independent voice rather than a purveyor of anti-Israel propaganda eventually will tire of seeing the newspaper they once loved and respected become a joke.

The parody humor sites get it. The Babylon Bee is running headlines like “Hamas Says All The AK-47s Found In Gaza Hospital Were Strictly For Medicinal Use” and “Palestinian Authority Warns That Gaza Hospitals Running Dangerously Low On Ammunition.” Why can’t the Times editors see it?

That’s not to say that there are not Gazans with real, acute, medical needs. Israel has in some cases facilitated evacuations for them, or coordinated their safe passage to other facilities. The situation for innocent, sick Gazans is surely dire, and they surely are scared. Yet the Times coverage places the blame on Israel while pretty much giving a pass to Hamas.

Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.