"I urge your newsroom to issue an on-air clarification addressing the unfair and inaccurate nature of this segment, and to commit to more rigorous scrutiny when reporting official narratives from the Israeli military—particularly as Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defense Minister are currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for war crimes."
June 4, 2025
To the CFJC Today newsroom,
I’m writing to you on behalf of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, https://www.cjpme.org) to express serious concern regarding a news segment aired today, on Wednesday June 4, 2025 at 6:40AM, which covered the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S. and Israeli-backed initiative ostensibly aimed at delivering aid to Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.
Disturbingly, in the opening part of the segment, from 6:41:16 to 6:41:32, the segment normalises Israel’s aid distribution as a military operation, and without criticism, presents Israel’s framing of roads to aid sites as “combat zones”. At 6:42:11 the segment aired, without skepticism, the Israel Defence Forces’ claims that warning shots were issued and that civilians were not targeted.
This framing is problematic for at least two reasons. First, Amnesty International has condemned the GHF initiative as “illegitimate and inhumane,” stating that "the United Nations and global aid organizations have universally condemned the GHF for undermining established aid distribution networks and violating core international humanitarian principles." Not only does Israel’s militarised humanitarian assistance mechanism violate international standards on aid distribution, it also endangers civilians, and is contributing to further the catastrophic situation in Gaza. Israel has clear obligations under international humanitarian law to agree to and facilitate humanitarian aid, while also strictly adhering to humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence.
Second, the UN reported on June 2, 2025 that Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians trying to access GHF aid trucks in Rafah, killing at least 31 civilians and injuring more than 200 Palestinians. The same UN press release also stated that these killings on June 2 “follow numerous reports of the lethal use of firearms against Palestinians approaching GHF distribution points in Rafah and Middle Gaza since this new mechanism was established late last month. Between 27 and 31 May, the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) had already recorded daily violence connected with the mechanism, including reports of at least 19 Palestinians killed and 80 injured in total.” The Guardian reported more than 30 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire last Sunday, according to witnesses, and AlJazeera has also confirmed Palestinian civilian deaths and injuries in recent reporting.
In this context, the use of passive wording such as “gunfire occurred” at 6:42:05 and “individuals deviating from the approved access route” at 6:42:14, is vague and inaccurate. The segment should state that Israeli troops opened fire, according to multiple sources, and question the justification for deadly force against civilians seeking food.
Further, in your segment, at 6:42:55, the UN is quoted calling for an impartial investigation, but the U.S. is given the last word, shifting blame onto Hamas for “intimidating Palestinians”, without evidence.
Instead of investigating or challenging Israel’s and the U.S. narrative, the segment uncritically repeated it.
Lastly, the segment does not provide the critical context as to what is causing the famine and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza: in addition to the relentless Israeli military actions that disproportionately kill Palestinian civilians, Israel blocked access to humanitarian assistance such as life saving food, nutrition and medical supplies for almost three months, and also deliberately cut off and/or destroyed infrastructure for provision of electricity, fuel, and access to clean water to Palestinians in Gaza. Without this context, the coverage seems to focus on providing visual footage of “the desperate and the hungry, the displaced residents of Gaza” (6:41:49) in a way that is deeply disturbing, dehumanising and sensationalistic.
Taken together, this coverage does not uphold ethical standards of journalistic accuracy and fairness, as laid out by the Canadian Association of Journalists.
I urge your newsroom to issue an on-air clarification addressing the unfair and inaccurate nature of this segment, and to commit to more rigorous scrutiny when reporting official narratives from the Israeli military—particularly as Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defense Minister are currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.
Sincerely,
Alison Jenkins