The Media Accountability Project  

"The claim made by AP here is inaccurate. Since January, Israel has carried out 132 airstrikes in Lebanon, a clear violation of the previous ceasefire agreement imposed by the two states in 2024."

The characterization of Israel’s blockade of Gaza is supported by authoritative international bodies, not critics. Framing it this way reduces established international legal conclusions to the level of subjective criticism.

Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal under international law but AP did not say this once in the article. Why?

While Israel routinely claims that it only targets infrastructure linked to the resistance in Lebanon, there have been repeated attacks on civilian infrastructure and civilians themselves. Yet the article glaringly omits this perspective and instead uncritically repeats Israeli military claims.

The issue with the article is that it does not provide space to challenge or raise skepticism around Israel’s claim that the IDF only targets buildings used by the resistance in Lebanon.

The article should specify that Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer and a major supplier to the Israeli military, producing drones, surveillance technologies, and weapons systems - profiting from and enabling Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians in Gaza.

The Toronto Star has a responsibility to provide rigorous, contextual, and impartial journalism. This article falls short of that standard. I therefore urge you to amend the title of the piece to reflect a more balanced and evidence-based account of the killing of the Palestinian teenager, specifically attributing Israel in the headline

The Israeli forces have long used the pretext that journalists are affiliated with armed groups to justify their killing. We have seen these unfounded allegations repeated time and time again. In 2025, Israeli officials falsely alleged that martyred journalist Anas al-Sharif was affiliated with Hamas, a claim which was then rejected by Al Jazeera affirming he had no such affiliation. 

The Canadian Association of Journalists’ Ethics Guidelines emphasize that accuracy is a fundamental pillar of responsible journalism. The article should therefore be corrected to clearly identify Israel’s attacks on medical and humanitarian personnel for what they are: violations of international law that constitute war crimes.

The claim that Lebanon was “dragged into this war” is therefore misleading, as the Israeli forces had already been conducting near-daily airstrikes in the south. I also write in good faith and from lived experience. My family, like many other Lebanese families, has been affected by Israel’s ceasefire violations since November 2024.