Left-wing Washington Post finally issued a correction six weeks after accusing Israel of forcing Palestinian mothers who received authorization to leave Gaza for humanitarian reasons to return to Gaza after their permits expired.
However, the Lefty outlet still snuck in an anti-Israel narrative. The WaPo admitted they failed to receive verified comments for the piece from Israeli officials.
An editor’s note was attached to the article titled, “Israel’s war with Hamas separates Palestinian babies from their mothers,” stating:
An earlier version of this article about Palestinian mothers in #Gaza who have been separated from their newborns mischaracterized some aspects of Israeli rules for permits that allowed some Palestinian women, before Oct. 7, to travel from Gaza to give birth at hospitals in the West Bank and Israel. The article incorrectly said that all Palestinian mothers who received authorization to leave Gaza for humanitarian reasons had to return to Gaza to reapply after their permits expired. In fact, it was not always necessary for mothers to return to Gaza. The article has been updated to specify that it was hospital officials who told two Palestinian mothers that they needed to return to Gaza to apply for new permits. The article also reported an incorrect birth weight for one newborn, Mahmoud; he weighed 3½ pounds, not 7 pounds. The article has been corrected.
Robert Satloff, the executive director of The Washington Institute, pointed out that the WaPo is “holding firm on refusing to identify the hospitals or name any of the nurses, doctors or administrators cited, which makes little sense. Instead, the Post is doubling down on the unverified claim that the unnamed interviewees have a legitimate fear of ‘retaliation’ by Israel.”
Success! Well, at least partial success.
— Robert Satloff (@robsatloff) December 29, 2023
Late this afternoon, @washingtonpost finally published an “editor’s note” & an updated version of the flawed Nov 17 article on #Palestinian mothers separated from their newborn infants because of the #Israel-#Hamas war.…
The Post has relied on unnamed sources for its information and making unverified claims.
Satloff noted a paragraph in the original article about hospital staff, patients, and a mother who said she was not “aware that she could apply for an extension and left without doing so.”
“Not one person mentioned there is identified. Are readers supposed to put blind trust in the same reporters who - by their editors’ own admission - already fell short of the Post’s standard of fairness,” Satloff questioned.