'Who killed'? CNN journalists fail to name killer of their colleague’s family in Gaza

By Press TV Staff Writer

Amid the Israeli regime’s indiscriminate attacks on the blockaded Gaza Strip, the death toll of journalists has already risen above 70, most of them Palestinian scribes working for local and international media.

Families of journalists reporting on the Israeli-American war on the territory have also been killed.

On Monday, CNN producer in Gaza, Ibrahim Dahman, was shocked to know that at least nine members of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on his aunt’s house in northern Gaza.

His childhood home in Gaza City was also destroyed in a separate bombing the same day, CNN reported.

However, bizarrely, the American news network and Dahman’s colleagues refused to tell the whole truth about the tragedy that befell the CNN producer, which sparked a massive outcry on social media.

“Dahman, 36, escaped to Egypt with his young family after nearly a month, but on Sunday he heard news that at least nine relatives trapped in northern Gaza had been killed in a strike on his aunt’s house,” CNN reported on Monday.

The news was headlined as: “CNN Gaza reporter’s relatives killed and childhood home destroyed in two separate strikes,” with no mention of who killed them – the Tel Aviv regime.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor, took to X (formerly Twitter) to condole the killing of Dahman’s family members but stopped short of naming the perpetrators.

“Awful news about our colleague Ibrahim Dahman's family: at least nine of his relatives have been killed. He's been fearlessly reporting for CNN from Gaza since well before this war began,” she wrote.

Amanpour did not mention that it was the Israeli regime that struck her colleague’s family home and killed nine members of his family, most of them children and women.

Another prominent CNN anchor and reporter Jim Acosta described it as“very sad news.”

“CNN Gaza reporter’s relatives killed and childhood home destroyed in two strikes – my condolences to Ibrahim and his family,” Acosta wrote on his X account.

His post also had no mention of who killed the Palestinian journalist’s family.

Larry Madowo, an international correspondent for CNN, followed the same line as his colleagues.

“CNN Gaza producer Ibrahim Dahman lost 9 family members in an air strike this weekend. His childhood home is in ruins. His house that he just finished renovating is a rubble,” he wrote on X.

Gili Remen, CNN journalist and producer based in New York, termed the news “devastating”, but echoed the ambiguous narrative and didn’t name the killer of Dahman’s family.

Eliza Mackintosh, a CNN editor, wrote that Dahman's relatives “were killed and his childhood home in Gaza destroyed in two separate strikes.”

Their tweets sparked immediate reactions from netizens, who blasted the network for failing to provide the context to the horror against journalists unfolding in the coastal besieged territory.

“Two prominent CNN journalists chose not to mention, in their tweets, that their Gaza correspondent was killed in an Israeli strike. Even in the CNN article, this information was omitted from the lead,” wrote one X user, slamming the network’s hypocrisy.

Inside Gaza: How Palestinian citizen journalists are chronicling life amid war

Palestinian citizen journalists, most of them acquainted with English, are now covering the war they are living in raw and intimate posts.

“CNN journalists informing us about the tragedy has befallen their CNN producer in Gaza while failing to give context that holds Israeli Occupying Force liable for the murder is testament to the complicity of International media in the genocide happening in Occupied Palestine,” wrote another user.

Some social media users reacted angrily to Amanpour’s post, questioning her journalistic integrity.

“I would think that when nine of your colleague's family members have been killed and you decide to post about it, you would have both the journalistic integrity and the respect for your colleague to identify the murderers,” wrote a user named Doc Jazz.

“Amanpour is a journalist and knows that the passive voice is the weakest journalistic form and a good journalist only uses it in limited cases. What is the importance of all this journalistic record, when she uses words a novice journalist would be ashamed of when it comes to Israel’s crimes,” wrote Fatima Alsmadi, a researcher with AJ Studies.

“Who killed his relatives, Christiane? Did they get hit by thunder,” asked journalist Dima Khatib.

The coverage of the Israeli-American war on Gaza in the Western media has come under increasing scrutiny since October 7 as news outlets have made a conscious effort to whitewash Israeli crimes.

Arwa Damon, who reported as a CNN correspondent, in an article recently admitted that Western media journalists “need to do a better job reporting the truth.”

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