This entire piece rests on the assumption that news outlets would disclose their sources even in normal circumstances, let alone under circumstances where those

This entire piece rests on the assumption that news outlets would disclose their sources even in normal circumstances, let alone under circumstances where those outlets were made fools of. I think the author here is drawing too many conclusions from having his cold emails ignored or blown off when that’s probably just the usual fate of cold emails. It’s possible they were cribbing from Al-Jazeera, and we’ll circle back to that later, but it’s also possible that they have contacts inside of Hamas. News outlets are often willing to skirt ethical lines they aren’t for access. For instance, the Associated Press’s bureau office in Gaza shared an office building with Hamas and the journalists in that office observed Hamas firing rockets just outside the building and had armed Hamas men barge into their office multiple times, and reported none of this. The truth only came out after Israel bombed the building, AP publicly complained about it, and a former AP reporter blew the whistle. (https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/how-the-media-makes-the-israel-story/383262/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/ho...). Stories like this aren’t uncommon, and a ton has been written about how bad actors can inflict biases on the news media simply by controlling access. As for Al-Jazeera, they are Qatari state media. Qatar is cozy with Hamas and Iran, and shelters the senior leaders of Hamas in posh Qatari hotels rather than letting them suffer the indignity of living alongside their people. This makes their reporting heavily partial, but it also means that they are probably aligned with whatever message Hamas wants to send. Even if there was a translation issue between the claim of 500 casualties and 500 deaths, it serves their purposes to go with the bigger lie anyway.