Multiple people are dead because of a deceptive report published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) back in January falsely claiming that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has ties to Hamas.
It was actually the New York Times that first published a report claiming that 12 UNRWA workers participated in the October 7 attack on southern Israel. The WSJ piggybacked that article by expanding it to include "intelligence reports" claiming that the entire UNRWA entity is a product of Hamas.
According to the WSJ, 10 percent of the agency's 12,000 workers in Gaza have ties to a number of Palestinian armed groups. The U.S. government's response has been to freeze all UNRWA funding, which prompted Germany, Great Britain and several other Western nations to do the same.
All in all, UNRWA is down about $450 million in funding due to the two reports from the WSJ and the NY Times. UNRWA, mind you, is the number-one source of funding for Palestinian refugees not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
(Related: Remember when Israel bombed the UNRWA building in Gaza as retaliation for Belgium's decision to continue funding the aid group?)
Top WSJ editor now admits claims against UNRWA are unsubstantiated
In the Gaza Strip, UNRWA operated more than 183 schools, 70 percent of which are now destroyed due to Israeli air strikes. UNRWA also operated 22 health centers in Gaza.
The sudden loss of funding at UNRWA means that all of these schools and health centers are no longer operational. It also means that the Palestinian people no longer have access to food, shelter and medical care as much of that also came from UNRWA, which was founded after the Nakba (catastrophe).
Since the time that the WSJ published its hit piece on UNRWA, the paper's chief news editor, Elena Cherney, has admitted that there is no evidence to suggest that UNRWA is tied to terrorism after all. She still supports the false claims, though.
"The fact that the Israeli claims haven't been backed up by solid evidence doesn't mean our reporting was inaccurate or misleading, that we have walked it back or that there is a correctable error here," Cherney is quoted as saying in an email uncovered by Semafor.
Three people familiar with the situation have also come forward to say that WSJ reporters "tried and failed to corroborate the 10% claim at the center of the story." These same people say that the WSJ is publishing heavily slanted coverage with a clear bias towards Israel.
Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA's commissioner general, released a statement on the status of an internal investigation by the Office of Internal Oversight Services. That investigation found that of the 19 suspected individual cases of UNRWA workers possibly having ties to Hamas, only nine "may have been involved," based on the available evidence.
"The evidence – if authenticated and corroborated – could indicate that the UNRWA staff members may have been involved in the attacks of 7 October," Lazzarini said, adding that the contracts of these nine staff members have been terminated and they will never again be allowed to work at UNRWA.
Since the start of the war, the WSJ has done nothing but try to cover for Israel. Many people are frustrated with the legacy media outlet for its pro-Israel bias, which was used as justification for the killing of multiple United Nations (UN) members by Israel.
Joe Biden and his regime have also used WSJ coverage as an excuse to support Israeli acts of genocide in Gaza. False claims like "mass rapes" and "babies in ovens" that have long since been debunked as hoaxes by the Israeli military are still being used by the government to support Israel at all costs.
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