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Bhavan Jaipragas

In the aftermath of this week’s tragic explosion at a Gaza City hospital, social media and mainstream media have been awash with contrasting narratives and reactions from various national governments.
Like many, I found myself in a whirlwind of rapidly changing reports as I scrolled through my news alerts on Wednesday morning.
The early reports by mainstream media – competing with social media posts – quoted Gaza authorities as saying the explosion was caused by an Israeli missile.
At one point, a Gaza health official put the casualty count at above 500. That too was prominently highlighted in news blasts.
Malaysia, Indonesia urge immediate Gaza ceasefire after hospital blast
Muslim nations from Turkey to Iran reacted with almost immediate anger, and spontaneous protests swelled in some of these countries’ capitals.
Later – closer to dawn in Asia – the Israelis put out their denials and counteraccusations that the explosion was in fact caused by a stray missile fired by the Palestine Islamic Jihad.
As I write this on Thursday evening, there seems to be quite a solid consensus among learned warfare observers that the Israelis were not responsible for this episode, and that Israel’s account of what happened stands up.
This is not just because “that’s what the Americans say”.




Open-source intelligence practitioners parsing things like crater size, fragmentation and blast damage all say the explosion could not have been caused by an Israeli air strike. The analysis also suggests the 500 casualty figure may be a significant overestimate.
Unfortunately, many have already made their minds up that the launch came from Israel.
With the Israel-Palestine conflict such a visceral issue for much of the Muslim world – not helped by Israel’s track record of ingenuity in similar instances – this has become the latest episode where tribalism and ideology have clouded reason.
With something as fraught as this conflict, no amount of evidence can convince those whose views are shaped by the information – or disinformation – pushed out by the camp they back

For me, this point has been the top takeaway: with something as fraught as this conflict, no amount of evidence can convince those whose views are shaped by the information – or disinformation – pushed out by the camp they back.
On a separate front, the episode is another reminder of how difficult it is to report on a war when speculation flies thick and fast on social media while on-the-ground reporting remains an extremely perilous undertaking.
Much of the media we are consuming containing colour and images from Gaza are from Gazan journalists – and they, like the strip’s 2 million residents, are in a struggle for survival with water and power supply shut off.

Apart from these difficulties, there are two other factors – a pessimist would say both quite intractable – that probably will make Wednesday’s information maelstrom more the norm than an anomaly.
First of these is the overall decline in trust of traditional or mainstream media. The major players may devote a large amount of resources to fact-checking, open-source intelligence and other such functions in times of conflict – but what is the point if no one cares what they report?
In its annual Digital News Report published in June, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism revealed survey findings that showed the number of people who access news through a website had dropped 10 points since 2018.
Younger groups are more likely to pay attention to celebrities, influencers and social media personalities than journalists on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat, the report found.
Israel-Hamas war divides Southeast Asia as trade, religion determine responses
Therein lies the second of the intractable problems: media outlets, including the prestigious ones, feel they have no choice but to compete with these individual voices when it comes to breaking news.
This means that when bloggers or users on X (formerly Twitter) report a claim as fact – in this case that Israel was behind the explosion – there is implicit pressure on breaking-news teams to match these flashes, even without the input of in-house fact-checkers or open-source intelligence professionals.
I am not optimistic that the industry has the collective self-awareness to get out of this self-afflicted vicious cycle to stem its slide to irrelevance.
Bhavan Jaipragas is the Post’s Asia Editor


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Israel wasn’t behind the Gaza hospital blast – but for some people, the facts don’t matter

Wounded Palestinians at the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, after arriving from al-Ahli hospital following an explosion there that killed hundreds. Photo: AP

Indonesian Muslims attend a rally supporting the Palestinian people in Jakarta last Sunday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Israel-Hamas war: Malaysia, Indonesia urge immediate Gaza ceasefire after hospital blast

A mother comforts her injured child at Nasser Hospital on Wednesday after air strikes at Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: dpa

The scene at Al Ahli hospital in Gaza on Wednesday following Tuesday’s blast after it was hit by an air strike. Photo: EPA-EFE

Israel-Hamas war: the toll of war on every aspect of children’s lives in Gaza

A Palestinian girl carries another girl after fleeing their house amid Israeli strikes, as they shelter at a United Nations-run centre in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Reuters

A Palestinian young man carries a child injured in a shelling on the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City. The lack of water and food in Gaza is inevitably affecting the young more immediately and more severely than adults. Photo: dpa

A Palestinian man carrying food walks with his children in Gaza. The Israeli government has tightened the blockade so that even commodities essential for survival are denied to the civilian population. Photo: EPA-EFE

Palestinian boys fill bottles with water from a mobile cistern in the Gaza Strip. Photo: AFP

Asian nations more cautious of crypto regulation after Hamas taps digital assets for Israel strike

A shop advertising cryptocurrency learning in Hong Kong. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Bitcoin ATMs operated by Coinhero in Hong Kong. Photo: Bloomberg

The website of cryptocurrency platform JPEX. Hong Kong’s crypto sector was recently hit by the JPEX scandal, in which more than US$192 million went missing. Photo: Bloomberg

The bitcoin logo in Hong Kong. Photo: Bloomberg

Israel-Hamas war divides Southeast Asia as trade, religion determine responses

Smoke rises from Gaza on Tuesday following Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian exclave. Photo: Reuters

Indonesian protesters shout slogans outside the US embassy in Jakarta during a rally on Tuesday to demand an end to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Photo: AP

What is Hamas? Israel at war with militant group that rules Gaza

Over the years, Hamas received backing from Arab countries, such as Qatar and Turkey. Recently, it’s moved closer to Iran and its allies. File photo: Reuters

Palestinian militants of the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement. File photo: AFP

Hamas militants during an anti-Israel rally in Gaza City in 2015. File photo: Reuters

This Week in Asia

Opinion

Online users who are convinced of Israel’s culpability have made up their minds along ideological grounds
The incident also reflects traditional media’s rising irrelevance in an era dominated by celebrities and individual voices


The Gaza hospital blast underscores the challenges of reporting from the frontline where facts compete with online speculations for attention.


War and conflict

Middle East

Social media

Religion

Israel

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

My Take