Transmitted below is the NEW YORK TIMES report on yesterday's killing by Israeli occupation forces of two Gaza "suspects", the oldest of whom was 10 years old.
WORTH NOTING:
1. While the text of the article cites the Israeli occupation forces' excuse for the killings that the children "conducted suspicious activities" and posed a threat to Israeli forces, the headline of the article starts: "Gazans Say Israeli Forces Killed Two Children ...". This is a classic formula for suggesting that the source of the information is not necessarily reliable and that the atrocity being reported upon may not actually have occurred.
2. The article contains a paragraph citing the children's uncle on the issue of whether the younger of the two boys killed was 9 or 10 years old which concludes by the gratuitous statement that the uncle "expressed some support on social media for the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel." How is this assertion of any conceivable relevance to the killing of the two children? It can only be an effort to assert guilt by association -- that, because their uncle had "expressed some support" for resistance to the illegal occupation of his country, the children deserved to die.
3. The article does note that, according to Gaza's health ministry, "more than 70,000 people have been killed" in Gaza (without explicitly stating what people or by whom they have been killed) since October 2023. The article could have noted that the health ministry's count includes only identifiable bodies kinetically killed and brought to hospitals or other health facilities, few of which continue to function, and that reputable international organizations deem the true death toll likely to be substantially higher. Instead, it includes the ritual, and perhaps obligatory, statement that "The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians." This statement seeks to reduce the significance of even the health ministry's minimalist death toll by suggesting that anyone who dares to resist the illegal occupation of his country deserves to die.
4. The article asserts that, since the truce, "Israeli forces have come under fire from militants several times, with at least three Israeli soldiers killed." The assertion that Israeli forces have come under fire from militants is stated as a fact (not, although Hamas has denied it, "Israel says ..."), and, if more than three Israeli soldiers had been killed, one can be certain that Israel would have proclaimed this so as to reduce the awkward more-than-100-to-one ratio of those killed in Gaza since the "cease-fire" was declared in effect.
This article could be the subject of a "case study" in journalism schools on how to deform reporting so as to please one's employer by pandering to its prejudices and political agenda.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/world/middleeast/israeli-forces-gaza-children-attack.html
Gazans Say Israeli Forces Killed Two Children, Amid Persistent Violence
The Israeli military said it had fired on two “suspects” on Saturday who had crossed cease-fire lines in southern Gaza and did not comment on reports that they were young children.
Credit...Abdel Kareem Hana/Associated Press
Israeli forces killed two children in Gaza in a strike on Saturday, according to the family and a Gazan health official, amid persistent violence in the territory despite an ongoing cease-fire.
Ahmed al-Farra, an official at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, which received their bodies, said the two children had been killed in Bani Suheila, an eastern neighborhood of the city that is close to the so-called yellow line to which Israeli forces withdrew as part of the cease-fire.
The children’s father and uncle identified the two boys as a pair of brothers, Fadi and Juma Abu Assi, the older of whom was 10 years old.
They said the two had gone out to gather wood, leaving their home on the outskirts of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, before being killed.
The Israeli military said forces had “identified two suspects” who crossed the cease-fire lines, “conducted suspicious activities on the ground” and posed a threat to nearby Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza.
The military did not comment on reports the two were children. “Following the identification, the air force, directed by forces on the ground, eliminated the suspects in order to remove the threat,” the military said in a statement.
Much about the episode remains unclear, including how the brothers might have wound up crossing the withdrawal line. In a separate incident on Saturday, the Israeli military said its forces had also killed a militant in southern Gaza who crossed the yellow line.
Family members gave slightly differing accounts of the two boys’ ages. Their father, Tamer Abu Assi, said in an interview aired by Palestine TV, the official broadcaster for the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, that they were 10 and 9 years old.
Raed Abu Assi, their uncle, said in a phone interview that Juma was 10 and Fadi was 8. Mr. Abu Assi said he had worked for the security services of the Palestinian Authority, which opposes Hamas, although he has previously expressed some support on social media for the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire in mid-October, which paused more than two years of devastating fighting. The war was ignited by the October 2023 attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage back to Gaza, mostly civilians.
The subsequent Israeli military campaign destroyed huge areas of Gaza and, according to a Saturday toll by Gaza’s health ministry, more than 70,000 people have been killed during the course of the war, including thousands of children. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Mediators, including the Trump administration, Qatar and Egypt, hope the cease-fire will ultimately lead to a permanent end to the war.
The truce has not fully ended the fighting. Israeli forces have come under fire from militants several times, with at least three Israeli soldiers killed. The military has at times responded by launching airstrikes across Gaza, killing at least 100 people in a single day of attacks, while others have been killed after approaching the yellow line.
“They say there’s a cease-fire, but it’s just a lie,” said Raed Abu Assi, 52. “Every night they bomb, they shell, they shoot. And we’re the ones paying the price.”