New York Times reporter Isabel Kershner sounded awfully petulant about an objectively wonderful event — the stunning, sophisticated rescue by the Israeli Defense Forces of four Israeli civilian hostages held in Gaza. Kershner not only cast a wet blanket over Israel’s joy, she even came up with reasons why the rescue was a non-event that would backfire: “Israel’s Euphoria Over Hostage Rescue May Be Fleeting.”
The paper’s front-page story Sunday, by other reporters, was bad enough. It appeared under the headline “Israel Rescues 4 Hostages in Assault That Killed Scores of Gazans.” But Kershner’s angle was even worse, foregrounding her Hamas-sympathetic position.
The audacious operation did little to resolve the many challenges facing Israel’s government.
For months, Israelis had heard only about hostages being killed or declared dead in Gaza. The “lucky” families were those whose loved ones’ remains were retrieved by soldiers, at great risk, and brought home to Israel for burial.
So the audacious rescue on Saturday of four living hostages instantly raised morale in Israel and offered a momentary victory, at least, for the country’s embatt d prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
But that was it as far as positives went from the Times. After that Kershner’s report served to demoralize Israel, noting that the rescue didn’t single-handedly solve all of Israel’s problems (really?).
But by Sunday, euphoria was already giving way to a harsh reality. The heavy air and ground assault that accompanied the rescue killed scores of Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials. And the operation failed to resolve any of the deep dilemmas and challenges vexing the Israeli government.
Eight months into its grinding war in Gaza, Israel still appears to be far from achieving its stated objectives of dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. And Israelis fear that time is running out for many of the hostages in Gaza. About a third of the 120 that remain have already been declared dead by the Israeli authorities.
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The rescue mission “doesn’t solve a single one of the problems that Israel has been facing ever since October 7,” wrote Nahum Barnea, a leading Israeli political columnist, in Sunday’s popular Yediot Ahronot newspaper.
And who will think of Hamas’s plight during this challenging time for the terrorists? Kershner will, even forwarding a Hamas threat to commit more war crimes against the hostages.
And for Hamas — which lost four of its remaining bargaining chips on Saturday — the deadly Israeli operation could harden its position. The group hinted that the rescue operation could make things worse for the remaining captives.
“The operation will pose a great danger to the enemy’s prisoners and will have a negative impact on their conditions and lives,” the spokesman for the group’s military wing, Abu Obeida, said in a statement on Saturday.
Experts said some of the remaining hostages may now be moved from aboveground civilian apartment buildings, like those that housed the four who were rescued on Saturday, to harsher conditions in underground tunnels where they will be harder to reach.
Kershner’s coverage betrays an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian bias, as when she dismissed Jewish victims of Palestinian terrorism.