A man runs on a road as fire burns after rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip, in Ashkelon, Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

Of all the pieces that were written within the first 48 hours of Hamas’ barbaric terror attack against the Jewish state, United Press International (UPI) managed to publish one of the most biased, decontextualized, and uninformative reports produced by any mainstream media organization.

From its headline, “Israel kills 413 Palestinians over Hamas offensive; Palestine criticizes West’s ‘double standards,’” down to its last paragraph, this article is replete with statements lacking any form of balance or objectivity, as well as claims and assertions that fail to provide readers with a proper understanding of what is currently going on in Israel and Gaza.

If you think the headline is bad, wait until you see the rest of the @UPI story.

It’s so egregious, that we’re going to have to do a full critique. Coming soon.https://t.co/IPUwsUjQqw pic.twitter.com/G2dIf29fK7

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 9, 2023

This war began as a multi-pronged attack by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians and soldiers, with barrages of rocket fire, massacres of party-goers and families in their homes, and the kidnapping of more than 100 Israeli women, children, and men.

However, UPI’s readers would be hard-pressed to glean any of this vital information from this article.

Throughout this 25-paragraph piece, the writers make repeated sympathetic references to Palestinian casualties in Gaza from Israeli reprisal strikes, while only thrice briefly mentioning the Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism: A statement about the number of Israelis who had been wounded, a sentence about Israel claiming that the “death toll has risen to 700” and a UN statement about how “50 Israeli forces personnel and civilians, including women and children, have been captured by Hamas and forcibly taken into Gaza.”

At no time do the writers find it necessary to inform their readers as to the number of Israeli civilian casualties (as it does for the Palestinians), or the brutal ways in which these victims were murdered.

Even with these two sentences about the Israeli victims, UPI felt it necessary to insert a sentence between them regarding Gazans who have been forced to flee the fighting zone.

In addition, while reporting that “Palestine’s Red Crescent Society shared pictures of bloodied and injured Palestinian children being treated by medical workers on social media,” UPI decided that it was prudent to stay silent on the hundreds of Israelis of all ages who have been slaughtered, wounded, and kidnapped — despite there being a plethora of images and videos on Israeli news sites and social media.

In reporting on a war that was precipitated by one of the deadliest days in Israeli history, it is incomprehensible that a responsible news organization would almost totally disregard the Israeli victims of terror while highlighting Palestinian casualties of Israel’s counter-terrorism efforts.

Complementing its near-total dismissal of the Israeli victims of Hamas’ terrorism is UPI’s implicit demonization of Israel’s actions in response to the attack.

Heavily quoting the “Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” a body that is fundamentally anti-Israel, UPI uses such terms as “collective punitive measures” and “war crimes” to describe the Israeli response to Hamas.

Further, UPI quotes the Ministry’s claim that many of those killed in Gaza were “defenseless civilians” (which has not been substantiated) but fails to inform its readers that it is in Hamas’ nature to hide their terror infrastructure among civilians so as to garner significant losses within the Gazan population.

Hey, @IanPannell.

These are targeted Israeli airstrikes, not “Israeli rockets.”

“Why” would Israel target a mosque? Because Hamas is a depraved terror org that hides among civilians, in hospitals, schools, mosques, and residential apartments. That’s why!

Context matters, @ABC! pic.twitter.com/sjCkN0YLAJ

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 9, 2023

Even the use of the term “retaliation” in the opening paragraph makes it seem as if Israel wantonly killed hundreds of Palestinians in cold revenge, instead of what it actually did — targeting Hamas terrorists in Gaza and those who had infiltrated Israeli communities.

To add to the impression of vengeful Israelis brutalizing innocent Palestinians in Gaza, their piece includes the statement “some Israelis are flying home to fight against Palestinians,” making it sound like an act of aggression rather than Israelis flying home to defend their country from Hamas terrorists.

Coupled with UPI’s implicit demonization of Israel’s response to Hamas’ terrorism is the wire service’s seeming justification for the terrorism itself.

Although Hamas is sworn to Israel’s destruction (as defined in its 1988 charter and re-emphasized in its 2017 document of principles and policies), UPI chose to ignore this salient fact and instead rationalize the attack by claiming that in the past year, the IDF has fired missiles at Gaza, the Israeli police has “stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem at least twice, including the Muslim holiday of Ramadan,” and that Israel has built new settlements in the West Bank.

Not only is this an echo of Hamas’ stated reasoning for butchering hundreds of innocent Israeli civilians, but it is also seriously lacking in vital context.

The earlier missile strikes in Gaza were part of a concerted counter-terrorism effort by Israel against leaders of the Islamic Jihad terror group, while the Israel Police were forced to enter the mosque after it had been overrun by Palestinians who were rioting and attacking Israelis with rocks, firecrackers, and other projectiles.

For UPI to demonize Israel’s response to terrorism while simultaneously providing rationales for the terrorism itself is the height of journalistic malpractice.

Indeed, there is so much wrong with this piece, that it would not be amiss to call for its removal in its entirety from the UPI website.

HonestReporting will be filing a complaint with UPI.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.