CBS Report Comes Up Empty on Fuel Claim
On CBS This Morning, Holly Williams reported today from Gaza City that Hamas appeared to reject an Egyptian-proposed ceasefire agreement because it did not include the removal of the security-based naval blockade imposed on Gaza since 2007. She says (at around 1:40 into the video, posted above) that the blockade has disrupted the economy “and deprived Palestinians of necessities like fuel and medical supplies.” (The text of the segment can be found here.)
However, it is Williams’ assertion that is deprived of accuracy. According to a recent report from COGAT, the Israeli authority responsible for the coordination of humanitarian affairs with Gaza, in the first several days of Operation Protective Edge, “some two hundred truckloads of food and essential supplies were delivered into the Gaza Strip” through the Kerem Shalom crossing, including 187,000 liters of gasoline, 526 tons of gas and 12 medical equipment trucks. And on Sunday and Monday, approximately 140 truckloads of general supplies and over 240 tons of gas were delivered into Gaza. While Hamas and other groups sent thousands of rockets into Israel, including the crossing itself, Israel continued to send goods into the coastal territory.
Such deliveries are not only made in times of crisis. From the start of 2014 through July 5, 21,704 trucks carried 536,481 tons of goods into Gaza.
This is far from the first report to repeat the tired trope of Israel denying goods to Palestinians in Gaza – it’s not even the first one this week. On July 9, UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna alleged during a CNN interview that there was no water or electricity in Gaza.
The previous day, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes erroneously characterized Gaza as being “under siege,” falsely implying that the enclave is entirely cut off from the outside world. CAMERA’s Tamar Sternthal has rebutted both these claims, here and here.
We will see if CBS can buck the trend and correct the error – or, like other media, it comes up empty on the facts.
— Josh Mellits
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