Wall Street Journal faces scrutiny over unconfirmed UNRWA-Hamas allegations: Semaphore
LONDON: The Wall Street Journal is still unable to verify claims from a January report suggesting links between staff from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and Hamas militants.
According to the US news website Semafor, the WSJ's top editor who monitors standards has privately acknowledged that the allegations, based on Israeli intelligence, may not be substantiated.
Elena Cherney, the chief news editor, acknowledged in an email seen by Semafor that the Israeli claims lacked solid evidence but maintained that the initial reporting was neither inaccurate nor misleading.
“The fact that the Israeli claims have not been backed up by solid evidence does not mean that our reporting was wrong or misleading, that we have gone back, or that there is a correctable error here,” Cherney wrote in an email.
The January report, described as one of the “biggest and most impactful stories of the war,” claimed that 12 UNRWA staff took part in the October 7 attack on Israel, with 10 percent of the agency's 12,000 workers in Gaza alleged to have links to Hamas.
This story, based on Israeli intelligence, was later questioned by several international organizations and the UN itself after an independent investigation.
The story had significant repercussions, including a heavy psychological toll on UNRWA workers and a freeze of $450 million in aid from various countries at a critical moment for Gaza, which is facing the threat of starvation.
Semaphore reported that WSJ reporters had tried and failed to confirm the 10 percent claims central to the story, raising concerns about the Israeli nature of the story.
“Our coverage of UNRWA is part of a long reporting effort on the war in Gaza involving staff across the newsroom,” a WSJ spokesperson said, confirming the paper's standing by the January story and subsequent reporting.
The incident has highlighted internal friction within the WSJ newsroom since the conflict began, including concerns about Deputy Middle East Bureau Chief Shayndi Raice's leadership and the controversial social media activity of Carrie Keller-Lynn, the author of the story.
The WSJ has also faced scrutiny for its unbalanced reporting of events in Gaza, with Richard Boudreaux, former Standard editor, admitting that the paper “leaned too heavily on Israeli voices and did not include enough Arab perspectives or expert sources.”
