In April 2023, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on a car in the Jordan Valley forcing it to crash on the shoulder of the highway. The terrorists fired at the vehicle again at close range killing sisters 20-year-old Maia and 15-year-old Rina Dee. Their mother Lucy Dee, 48, was rushed to a hospital in critical condition but died three days later.
The Dees were unarmed Israeli civilians murdered by armed Palestinian terrorists.
On April 10, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour’s opening remarks in an interview with Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh included this:
We have a young 15-year-old Palestinian boy who’s been shot and killed by security — Israeli security forces. We also have the mother of two sisters, Israeli British sisters. They were — they were killed in a shootout, and now the mother has died of her injury — injuries.
Amanpour wasn’t the only one to distort the reality of the Dees’ murders.
On May 4, in an otherwise sympathetic segment for ITV News London, reporter Daniel Henry described the appalling events surrounding the Dees:
They’re driving and they’re caught in crossfire, and that crossfire eventually kills two daughters and a mother.
In correspondence with HonestReporting, ITV said:
We would like to apologize for the use of the phrase ‘caught in crossfire’. This phrase did not accurately reflect the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Lucy Dee and her daughters Maia and Rina. The reporter is now aware that this phrase should not have been used and he, and ITV News London, apologize for the language used, which was a human error during a live broadcast.
Indeed, to his credit, Daniel Henry contacted HonestReporting via social media and apologized:
In my live report I made a mistake in the way I described what happened to the Dee family.
They were intentionally shot at – but I said they were caught in crossfire, which wasn’t accurate.
The mistake was not deliberate or malicious – but I know that inaccuracies in our coverage of tragedies like this can really hurt.
I appreciate the damage is already done – but please know that I am sorry I got that important detail wrong.
* * *
In neither of these cases are we suggesting malicious intent on the part of Christiane Amanpour or Daniel Henry. Mistakes do happen, particularly during live broadcasts.
However, these are examples of how, either consciously or subconsciously, many in the media are unable to directly attribute the murder of Israeli civilians and give agency to the people responsible: Palestinian terrorists. This is similar, for example, to how “cars” or “drivers” are sometimes held to be responsible for Palestinian car-ramming attacks.
Daniel Henry and ITV owned their mistake. Will Christiane Amanpour and CNN own theirs?
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