Col. Richard Kemp at humanitarian aid site with Gazans. Photo: Provided

One of the latest anti-Israel libels to emerge is the claim that Israel purposefully targets and murders Palestinians lining up to receive aid at sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

One of the chief spreaders of this libel is Tony Aguilar, a former American contractor for the GHF, who has spent the last few months being platformed by both mainstream and alternative news sources to detail what he describes as Israeli and American “war crimes” against aid-seeking Palestinians.

One of Aguilar’s most compelling stories was about a young Palestinian boy named Amir who kissed Aguilar’s hand after receiving aid and walked away — only to be gunned down by Israeli forces moments later and die in front of Aguilar’s eyes.

This story, which played upon the heartstrings of everyone who heard it, spread around the world at the speed of light.

Aguilar and his story about the innocent Palestinian boy brutally murdered were quickly picked up by MSNBC, the BBC, Piers Morgan, Tucker Carlson, and other media outlets, both mainstream and alternative.

However, the story wasn’t true.

Aguilar did briefly interact with this child after he had picked up aid, but he was quickly dispatched home to his family. There was no meaningful interaction between Aguilar and the child, and he certainly did not see him die.

Once Aguilar’s false narrative began making its way into headlines, the GHF quickly did damage control, proving through documentary evidence that Aguilar was a disgruntled employee and many of his claims were baseless.

The GHF also set out to find Amir to determine that he was safe and was not being targeted by Hamas (who would not want his continued existence to get in the way of Aguilar’s beneficial narrative).

After several weeks, the GHF ultimately located Amir, who is really an 8-year-old named Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hamden (known as Abood to his family).

Once they were able to relocate Abood and his family to safety, the GHF released videos of the boy, proving that Aguilar’s story was a fraud and that his stories meant to harm Israeli and American interests were untrue.

 Major Announcement: We have incredible news to share.

The young Gazan boy falsely identified as “Amir” by former UG contractor Tony Aguilar is alive and safe.

His real name is Abdul Rahim Muhammad Hamden – “Abood” as his family calls him – and after weeks of high-risk work… pic.twitter.com/WxUxTrnPxO

— Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (@GHFUpdates) September 4, 2025

MSNBC’s Quiet Revisionism

Tony Aguilar was able to dupe Congressmen, Senators, and the media about his tales of war crimes and atrocities, all because it fit their shared narrative that Israel is acting barbarically in the Gaza Strip and the GHF is not a legitimate aid organization.

Instead of investigating his allegations, the media took Aguilar at his word because it was a good story — and why let the facts get in the way of a good anti-Israel story? No need for verification when it can be used for vilification.

But now that Aguilar and his story of Amir have been proven to be fiction, what are the media to do? Well, in the case of MSNBC, they have chosen to discreetly erase the story from their website.

As first reported by The Daily Wire’s Kassy Akiva, the story of Amir was “quietly deleted” from the MSNBC website and provided no comment to back up this 1984-style act of revisionism.

To jump on an unverified story because it suits your anti-Israel narrative is bad enough. To then try to hide all evidence of your journalistic malfeasance and refuse to acknowledge your mistake is even worse.

MSNBC quietly deleted its feature on Tony Aguilar’s false story about “Amir” being “gunned down.”@realdailywire asked MSNBC for an explanation and they responded with: “no comment from the network.” pic.twitter.com/4U6kGyA07e

— Kassy Akiva (@KassyAkiva) September 10, 2025

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.