Op-Ed: Accuracy In Gaza Reporting Questioned

Some have questioned the accuracy of the reporting in the Operation Cast Lead purported wide spread destruction and death in Gaza, but one freelancer went to look for herself.

Yvonne Green is a freelance writer, a Jew, and poet who took the risk of entering Gaza to see for herself what type of damage and destruction had been done. To find out how deprived of essential goods the people of Gaza might be. What she found didn't match many of the reports which came out of Gaza during and after Operation Cast Lead. Instead of indiscriminate attacks on homes, and schools she found evidence of precise and "surgical" attacks on weapons caches. Undoubtedly the Hamas infrastructure had been targeted by Israel, but not in the widely reported wanton destruction method so many media outlets used at the time of the conflict. Strangely neither did she find the people of Gaza to radical in their love of Hamas and the bullying tactics of the Hamas Black Shirts. What Ms. Green did find and report is the disparity of the number of wounded in Gaza, she found empty beds in the Shifa Hospital , she found Gazans who disputed the characterization of the attacks by Israel as murderous. The destructive attacks on the UNWRA school Ms. Green found to be largely unsubstantiated as regards the utter destruction, and noted that the signs of the area being used by Hamas as an attack point were unmistakable.

When I met Mona al-Ashkor, one of the 40 people injured running toward Al-Fakhora - rather than inside it as widely and persistently reported - I was told that Israel had warned people not to take shelter in the school because Hamas was operating in the area, and that some people had ignored the warning because UNWRA previously told them that the school would be safe. Press reports that fatalities numbered 40 were denied.

Ms Green notes that Gaza appears to be societally intact and the markets are full of all that the people need, fruits vegetables and fresh meat. Somehow the retractions made in the New York Times seem to have missed the front page the way the initial headlines were bannered for all to see.Actually, after doing a search at the NY Times to find retractions of any of the stories done on the Gaza conflict I found precisely - 0.