Israel demands CNN apology over attack coverage

American network reporters present tendentious coverage of Saturday's gruesome murder in Itamar, question fact it was a terrorist attack. Israel's Government Press Office 'dumbfounded, astonished'

Attila Somfalvi
Israel News


Israel is demanding an apology from CNN over its coverage of Saturday's terrorist attack in Itamar claiming it was "tendentious and deceptive." Government Press Office director Oren Helman sent a letter to CNN's Bureau Chief Kevin Flower saying he was astonished at the network's coverage of the ruthless attack. A CNN website report avoided describing the event as a terror attack, noting that the Israel Defense Forces consider it an act of terrorism. "Only you decided to use the term terrorist attack in quotation marks, as if this were not necessarily the case," Helman wrote. "There is a limit to the extent of objectivity regarding such a horrific deed."


The CNN report. 'Family members killed in what military calls terror attack'


The CNN report stated: "Five members of an Israeli family were killed in the West Bank early Saturday morning in what the Israeli military is calling a 'terror attack.'"


The report went on to say: "According to a military spokeswoman, an intruder entered the Israeli settlement of Itamar near the northern West Bank city of Nablus around 1 am, made his way into a family home and killed two parents and their three children."



The IDF's official statement noted that forces were searching for a "terrorist" and not an "intruder" as the CNN report noted. The terrorist was also referred to as an "assailant" later in the report. There was no mention of the possibility this was the act of a Palestinian terrorist.


BBC report. 'Family members stabbed by an intruder'



The BBC also referred to the terrorist as an intruder in its report. "The family - including three children - were stabbed to death by an intruder who broke into their home, Israeli media reported," the BBC reported Saturday. Readers might deduce the family members died in a failed burglary attempt.


The BBC went further and evinced its stance on Israel's policy in the territories. "Nearly half a million Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem," the report stated. "They are held to be illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this."



Roi Simyoni contributed to this report

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