The New York Times building in New York City. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Read the below headlines quickly.

That is, after all, how most people encounter the news: in a notification, a search result, a social-media feed, or a glance at a homepage.

“Israeli Airstrike in Rafah Kills Dozens in Tent Camp, Gazan Officials Say.”

“Israeli Strike Kills Dozens at Former School Where Civilians Were Sheltering.”

“Israeli Strike on Gaza Shelter Kills at Least 30 and Injures Dozens.”

“Israel Criticized After Strike Kills Scores in Gaza.”

Then, after the temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas collapsed in March 2025: “Tallying the Dead Once Again: Photos and Videos From the Gaza Strikes.”

Two months later: “Strike on Hospital Highlights Israeli Attacks on Gaza Health System.”

And in August 2025: “Over 15 Killed in Gaza City, One Day After Israel Ends Daily Pauses for Aid.”

A pattern emerges almost immediately.

The same words recur: tent camp, school, shelter, hospital. Strike. Killed. Dead.

Then come the casualty figures – rapidly reported, always before they could be independently verified.

Hamas, when it appears at all, comes later.

That brings us to something fundamental to journalism, and particularly important for The New York Times, widely considered the newspaper of record: hierarchy.

What did readers learn first? What was elevated into the headline, and what was relegated to later paragraphs? Which information was presented declaratively, and which was introduced merely as something Israel “said” or “claimed”?

And what happened to that original framing when later evidence made the military dimension of these strikes considerably clearer?

How Headlines Shape Perception

The significance of that hierarchy is not speculative.

In a July 2024 interview with The New Yorker, journalist Clare Malone put the problem directly to New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn: “Often, people only read the headlines.”

Kahn’s answer made clear just how seriously the NYT itself regards headline construction. As stories develop, he explained, headlines can change repeatedly as new information emerges; the goal, he said, is for the headline to evolve with the story and reflect what can be stated with confidence.

Elsewhere in the same interview, Kahn described the outlet as constantly considering the “hierarchy of the stories” it promotes – their placement, prominence and packaging.

And when challenged specifically over criticism that the NYT emphasized Palestinian civilian deaths without sufficiently conveying Hamas’s strategy of operating among civilians, Kahn defended the newspaper by pointing to its reporting on the “way Hamas embeds itself in the civilian population.”

Editors at the outlet were plainly aware of both sides of the equation: the enormous influence of headline hierarchy, and the military significance of Hamas operating within Gaza’s civilian environment.

A peer-reviewed study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied found that misleading headlines, including those that emphasize a secondary aspect of an article rather than its central gist, can affect readers’ memory and inferential reasoning even when they go on to read the full story. Researchers found that the initial framing supplied by the headline can persist despite corrective or qualifying information later in the article.

That makes the distinction between these two formulations more than semantic: Israel strikes a school, killing dozens and Israel strikes Hamas commanders operating from a compound inside a school, killing militants and civilians. Both may describe aspects of the same event, but they tell profoundly different stories about what happened and why.

Testing a Pattern

Rather than treating individual examples as isolated anecdotes, HonestReporting built an incident-based case set around high-profile New York Times coverage of Israeli strikes in Gaza between May 2024 and August 2025.

Cases were selected for detailed examination where three conditions were present:

1. The headline or visual presentation prominently foregrounded a civilian location, civilian casualties or a humanitarian consequence;
2. Israel identified a Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad target, personnel or military infrastructure as part of the reason for the strike – either contemporaneously or shortly afterward;
3. Subsequent evidence existed that allowed that military claim to be tested against later information, including statements or memorial material from Hamas or PIJ, independent investigations, documentary evidence, later physical discoveries or subsequent Israeli intelligence releases.

Seven incidents met the threshold for detailed reconstruction and form the core case studies below.

But they are not the entirety of the evidence examined.

HonestReporting also reviewed a wider set of New York Times stories involving subsequently identified Hamas and PIJ figures, disputed militant identifications, faction-confirmed affiliations and – importantly – counterexamples in which the Times did prominently identify the Hamas target in its headline.

That wider comparison was critical to distinguishing between a genuine editorial pattern and the much broader – and demonstrably false – claim that the NYT simply never told readers whom Israel was targeting.

Within the seven core case studies:

• Seven out of seven foregrounded civilian death, a civilian setting or a humanitarian consequence.
• Six out of seven used death or casualty language in the headline or visual title.
• None of the seven named the specific Hamas or Islamic Jihad figure being targeted in the headline.
• And in five of the seven, evidence beyond the original Israeli assertion subsequently provided meaningful corroboration that Hamas or PIJ personnel, commanders or military infrastructure were indeed part of the event.

Those figures describe the core case set – not every New York Times article published about Gaza.

This analysis does not treat every IDF statement as fact. It separates claims according to the strength of the subsequent evidence: faction confirmation, independent corroboration, documentary evidence, Israeli identification or unresolved dispute.

Indeed, one of the most revealing cases begins with an Israeli announcement that later proved partly wrong.

The purpose is not to assume Israel was correct.

It is to ask what the headline told readers before the evidence could be tested, and whether that framing still reflected the story once it was.

Rafah: The Headline Said ‘Tent Camp.’ The Target Was Hamas.

On May 26, 2024, the NYT headline read: “Israeli Airstrike in Rafah Kills Dozens in Tent Camp, Gazan Officials Say.”

The images were horrific. A fire tore through an area occupied by displaced Palestinians.

But the paper’s own reporting acknowledged that the strike had been aimed at a Hamas compound and that Israel said two senior Hamas figures – Yassin Rabia and Khaled Najjar – were the targets.

The IDF said it used two precision munitions containing 17 kilograms of explosive each and that it had taken steps to assess the civilian presence beforehand. It subsequently investigated whether a secondary explosion, possibly involving weapons stored nearby, contributed to the much larger fire.

More revealing is what an investigation by Amnesty International, hardly an organization inclined to simply accept Israeli military accounts, later established.

Amnesty found that Rabia was indeed killed. It also identified Qassam commander Khuweiled Ramadan and at least two additional Hamas fighters among the dead.

Amnesty also found an error in Israel’s initial announcement: Khaled Najjar was wounded, not killed. Amnesty nevertheless concluded that Hamas fighters were present and targeted, while simultaneously arguing that the civilian toll warranted investigation over what it claimed could amount to violations of international war.

That combination is precisely why this case matters. Although Israel’s initial account of who had been killed, the underlying military necessity of the strike was clear.

Yet millions of readers encountering only the headline received a much simpler sequence: Israel striking a tent camp, killing dozens.

Nuseirat: The NYT Already Knew About the Three Classrooms

Eleven days later came another headline: “Israeli Strike Kills Dozens at Former School Where Civilians Were Sheltering.”

This case is particularly revealing because the military context was not information that emerged months afterward.

The paper reported that Israel said 20 to 30 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives were concentrated in three specific classrooms inside the UNRWA school complex. It also reported that the strike had been postponed twice in an effort to reduce civilian casualties.

Israel subsequently released 17 names it said belonged to Hamas and PIJ operatives killed in the strike.

Airwars, another organization that does not adopt Israeli casualty classifications, now assesses that seven militants were among those killed. Its research independently found evidence supporting several militant identifications. And in 2026 it changed several classifications of civilians killed after material from a Telegram channel affiliated with PIJ’s armed wing memorialized men killed in the strike as terrorists.

Gaza City: ‘The Third Attack on a School’

On Aug. 4, 2024, the NYT reported: “Israeli Strike on Gaza Shelter Kills at Least 30 and Injures Dozens.”

Its opening paragraph immediately widened the frame: this was, readers were told, the third attack on a school in four days.

The military explanation came afterward. Israel said it had struck Hamas command-and-control centers embedded in the Hassan Salama and al-Nasr schools.

The following day, the IDF and Shin Bet identified one of those killed at Hassan Salama as Jaber Abd al-Karim Aziz, commander of Hamas’s Al-Furqan Battalion, who had played a key role in preparations for Oct. 7 and had participated in numerous attacks against Israel.

Al-Taba’een: ‘Israel Criticized. Scores Killed.’

Six days later: “Israel Criticized After Strike Kills Scores in Gaza.”

Again, the structure was unmistakable.

And yet in the body of the article, the NYT reported Israel’s explanation that Hamas and another armed group were operating from the school compound.

Israel’s account was considerably more specific.

The IDF said the target was a Hamas command-and-control center embedded in a mosque within the Al-Taba’een school compound. They later published 31 names they said belonged to Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives killed in the strike.

The military also said it had used three precision munitions and described precautions including aerial surveillance, intelligence gathering and the use of a small warhead to reduce civilian harm.

Israel supplied a detailed account of a specific military facility within the compound, a long list of alleged militants and concrete claims about measures taken to reduce civilian harm.

The headline supplied none of that military context, instead becoming an allegation that Israel had to defend.

The casualty narrative became the headline-level fact.

March 2025: The War Returns as a Gallery of Bodies

On March 18, 2025, after nearly two months of ceasefire, Israel launched a large surprise wave of strikes across Gaza.

The NYT’s visual presentation the following day was: “Tallying the Dead Once Again: Photos and Videos From the Gaza Strikes.”

Its visual center was a grieving father holding a shrouded child.

Hamas itself announced the deaths of senior figures in its governing and security apparatus killed in the strikes, including Essam al-Da’alis, a senior Hamas government figure; Mahmoud Abu Watfa, a senior Interior Ministry/security official; Ahmed al-Hetta, a senior justice official; and Bahjat Abu Sultan, a senior internal-security figure.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad separately confirmed that Naji Abu Saif, known as Abu Hamza, the longtime spokesman for its armed wing, had been killed.

These confirmations established something essential: the opening wave was simultaneously eliminating senior Hamas political, governmental and security figures and figures within Islamic Jihad’s military structure.

Yet the NYT’s visual story organized the event principally around the resumption of Palestinian death and grief.

European Gaza Hospital: The Headline Suggested a War on Health Care

Perhaps no case demonstrates the problem more clearly than the May 13, 2025, strike near European Gaza Hospital.

The following day, the paper’s headline read: “Strike on Hospital Highlights Israeli Attacks on Gaza Health System.”

The framing widened the event beyond one strike: aid groups and UN investigations had accused Israel of aiming to destroy Gaza’s health infrastructure, while Israel’s argument that Hamas used hospitals for military purposes was presented as Israel’s stated justification.

Who was Israel trying to kill?

Mohammed Sinwar, who had risen to become one of Hamas’s most important military leaders after the death of his brother Yahya.

And what emerged afterward is central to understanding the original event.

Israeli forces entered the area and found Sinwar’s body, identified through DNA, inside a tunnel beneath the European Hospital complex. The body of Muhammad Shabana, commander of Hamas’s Rafah Brigade, and other operatives were also found there.

Foreign journalists, including Reuters, were later taken into the tunnel. Reuters reported that the military displayed weapons, ammunition, cash and intelligence materials recovered from the underground complex.

That makes the original framing extraordinary.

The issue was not merely that Israel “says” Hamas uses hospitals for military purposes.

Hamas’s military leadership was physically found in tunnel infrastructure beneath a functioning hospital, while the New York Times suggested it was an Israeli assault on Gaza’s health system.

Abu Obeida: The Target Was in the Story

On Aug. 30, 2025: “Over 15 Killed in Gaza City, One Day After Israel Ends Daily Pauses for Aid.”

The New York Times told readers in the article that one of the strikes was an attempt to assassinate Abu Obeida, the longtime masked military spokesman of Hamas’s Qassam Brigades. At the time, it was unclear whether the attempt had succeeded.

Israel announced the following day that it had.

Months later, Hamas settled the central factual question. On Dec. 29, the Qassam Brigades formally confirmed the death of Hudhayfa al-Kahlout – Abu Obeida – and introduced a successor who inherited the nom de guerre.

This illustrates the argument in its purest form. While the NYT mentioned Obeida, it failed to do so in the most obvious place, instead highlighting a contested death toll, and aid going into Gaza.

The Civilian-Infrastructure Problem Was Not a Secret

Hamas’s military use of civilian environments was not some unfamiliar Israeli allegation. By July 2024, Joe Kahn was publicly citing Times reporting on “the way Hamas embeds itself in the civilian population” as an important part of the newspaper’s Gaza coverage.

In December 2024, the paper published “Records Seized by Israel Show Hamas Presence in UN Schools.” The New York Times reviewed internal Hamas documents supplied by Israel linking personnel at UNRWA schools to Hamas. Among them was Ahmad al-Khatib, a deputy principal described in the records as a Qassam fighter and squad commander, while Khaled al-Masri was identified as a Hamas member who had been issued weapons. Residents interviewed by the NYT described Hamas operatives in UNRWA schools as an “open secret.”

The paper’s reporting painted a stark picture: “school” and “military site” were not necessarily mutually exclusive categories in Gaza. Neither were “mosque” and “command center” or, as European Hospital would later demonstrate, “hospital” and “Hamas tunnel infrastructure.”

Foregrounding only the civilian identity of such a site can therefore leave readers with a fundamentally incomplete understanding of why it was targeted in a strike.

Meanwhile, Hamas’s leadership understood the political value of Palestinian casualties.

Messages from Yahya Sinwar obtained by The Wall Street Journal showed him calculating that mounting Palestinian deaths would increase international pressure on Israel. Discussing losses incurred in national liberation struggles, he called them “necessary sacrifices.”

Set that alongside Hamas’s documented use of civilian environments and the strategy becomes clear: embed military targets among civilians, exploit Israel’s reluctance to strike them, and, when civilians are killed, reap the international pressure Sinwar explicitly calculated would work to Hamas’s advantage.

None of this makes civilian harm irrelevant. But nor does the presence of civilians erase a legitimate military target.

A school, mosque or hospital is civilian infrastructure. But if Hamas uses part of that infrastructure for military purposes, that use becomes essential to understanding why it was attacked. Under international humanitarian law, civilian objects can lose their protection from attack when and for such time as they are being used for military action, while the attacking force remains obligated to distinguish between military and civilian targets and take feasible precautions to reduce civilian harm. Throughout the war, Israel repeatedly issued evacuation warnings and used measures including leaflets, text messages, phone calls and designated evacuation zones to move civilians away from areas of fighting, while in individual strikes it also described using surveillance, delaying attacks when civilians were detected and selecting precision munitions to reduce civilian harm.

Considering the Wider Record

The pattern extends beyond the seven core cases. Across The New York Times archive are other stories in which the first and most powerful impression was one of Israel devastating a civilian area or killing journalists, while information about Hamas or Islamic Jihad connections either appeared later, emerged only after publication or received considerably less prominence.

Some of those later identifications are firmly established, proven by Israeli intelligence or seized documents. Taken together, they show how often the identity assigned in the first headline was considerably simpler than the evidentiary picture that followed.

• Ibrahim Biari – Jabaliya, Oct. 31, 2023: Visual coverage emphasized an Israeli strike that had “decimated” a densely populated area of Gaza. Israel identified the target as Ibrahim Biari, commander of Hamas’s Central Jabaliya Battalion, and said other Hamas operatives and underground military infrastructure were struck with him. The destruction dominated the presentation; the Hamas command structure Israel said it was attacking was secondary.
• Hamza al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya – Jan. 7, 2024: The NYT’s headline was “Two More Journalists Killed in Gaza, Including Son of Al Jazeera Reporter.” Israel subsequently identified al-Dahdouh as a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s electronic-engineering apparatus and Thuraya as a Hamas operative. In al-Dahdouh’s case, the IDF published an internal PIJ document recovered in Gaza listing him among the organization’s personnel. The later intelligence was plainly relevant to a story whose original framing rested almost entirely on the men’s journalistic identities.
• Ismail al-Ghoul – July 31, 2024: The NYT reported “Two Al Jazeera Journalists Were Killed in Israeli Airstrike.” Israel subsequently said al-Ghoul was not simply a journalist but a Hamas military-wing operative and published a seized 2021 Hamas personnel document identifying him as an engineer in the Gaza Brigade. Al Jazeera rejected the allegation and disputed the document.

There was a recurring pattern of omission, one that repeatedly exposed the inadequacy of treating categories such as “journalist,” “school employee,” “hospital” or “shelter” as though they necessarily excluded a simultaneous military connection. In Gaza, the evidence frequently showed precisely the opposite.

There are also important counterexamples.

• Marwan Issa – March 2024: The NYT explicitly headlined: “Israel Says It Targeted Marwan Issa, a Top Hamas Leader in Gaza.”
• Mohammed Deif and Rafa Salama – July 2024: It led with “Israel Launches Major Attack Against a Senior Hamas Commander,” making Mohammed Deif the organizing fact of the story despite substantial reported civilian casualties.

Those examples are significant because they demonstrate that The New York Times was perfectly capable of structuring a story around the military target rather than the civilian setting. The issue, then, is not that it never did so. It is that in a consequential series of some of the war’s most emotionally charged incidents, editors repeatedly chose the opposite hierarchy – foregrounding the civilian identity, location or death toll while the Hamas or Islamic Jihad dimension appeared later, was qualified as an Israeli assertion or emerged only after the original framing had already travelled around the world.

The Story Created by Repetition

Individually, each headline can be defended. A tent camp burned, civilians sheltered in schools, hospitals were damaged and children were killed. But journalism is not merely the accumulation of singly defensible facts. Repetition creates narrative. Again and again, readers encountered the same basic story: Israel struck a school, a shelter, a tent camp or a hospital, and civilians died. The military dimension most often appeared lower down, and wrapped in attribution.

In case after case, that missing context strengthened with time. Hamas fighters were independently identified at Rafah; militant classifications at Nuseirat were later reinforced by Palestinian armed-group material; Hamas and PIJ acknowledged senior figures killed in the March 2025 strikes; Mohammed Sinwar was recovered from a tunnel beneath European Hospital; Hamas later confirmed Abu Obeida was dead.

When the civilian site and casualty count repeatedly became the headline while the military target was buried, qualified or omitted, the cumulative effect was profound: a war against Hamas increasingly became a story of Israel attacking civilians. The distinction between striking a school because it is a school and striking militants operating from within it is not peripheral; it is central to understanding what happened. Joe Kahn has said that as a story evolves, its headline should evolve with it.

In Gaza, the evidence often evolved. The headlines did not.

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.