All the lies Hamas has told the world in war against Israel

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As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faces growing pressure to state Canada’s position on who was responsible for a blast at a hospital in Gaza City this week, the incident highlights the role misinformation plays in war coverage.

Earlier this week, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry announced that a Gaza hospital where Palestinians had been sheltering had been hit by an Israeli airstrike, leaving hundreds dead.

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These are the graphic photos Israel released of burned babies to reveal horror of Hamas attack

Israel’s military swiftly denied involvement, stating that the incident was caused by a misfire by Hamas, which Canada has listed as a terrorist entity since 2002. Israel’s position was backed by the U.S. Defense Department, citing its own data and investigation.

Trudeau, meanwhile, has said he was “horrified” by the deaths and added that “we must determine what happened.”

Trudeau’s waffling has rankled Conservatives, including Michael Chong, the party’s foreign affairs critic in Parliament. Earlier this week, Chong asked why the government had not “clarified the record,” as the U.S. did.

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Jewish groups, like the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, have also issued statements expressing deep disappointment that Canada “continues to give weight” to Hamas’s allegation.

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The war, now in its 14th day, has seen a flurry of lies spread across social meda, with fakes images and information being shared as confusion and deliberate disinformation heighten tensions.

Hamas, which is believed to be holding at least 200 hostages, including teenagers and young children, released its first hostage video earlier this week.

In it, Mia Schem, a 21-year-old French-Israeli woman who was kidnapped from Israel’s Supernova music festival earlier this month, claims she is being “well treated,” while appealing for her release.

Her words are of little comfort to her family, as videos of Hamas’s treatment of women have told a much different story, igniting fears of sexual assault.

“It is an ignominy to take innocent people hostage and put them on show in this odious way,” said French president Emmanuel Macron in response to the video. Macron added that France was “working with its partners to free French hostages held by Hamas.”

“Hamas is trying to portray itself as a humane organization, while it is responsible for the murder and abduction of babies, women, children, and elderly,” added the Israeli military in its own statement.

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Schem’s mother said she is “begging the world to bring my baby back home.”

“This is a crime against humanity and we should all gather and stop this terror and bring everybody back home,” she said.

In another video, which surfaced on Telegram, Hamas claims that children are also being well cared for, despite graphic images of dead and burned babies emerging in the wake of their attacks.

Some of those images were shared on Israel’s official Twitter account last week. They were also shared with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“For any human being to see this, it’s really beyond almost anything that we can comprehend and digest,” Blinken said. “The world is seeing new evidence of depravity and the inhumanity of Hamas — depravity and inhumanity directed at babies, at small children, at young adults, at elderly people, at people with disabilities.”

With files from Reuters, The Guardian and The Canadian Press

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