Twice this week, global headlines have parroted Hamas propaganda only for the lies to fall apart by day’s end. Hamas claimed that IDF soldiers shot and killed 31 Gazan civilians seeking humanitarian aid on Sunday and another 27 on Tuesday. Of course, as Israeli government spokesman David Mencer later clarified, “[T]he IDF did not fire at civilians in, or near, humanitarian aid distribution zones.” But that did not prevent global media outlets from running headlines about the make-believe butchery, without seeking first to independently verify Hamas’s version of events.

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. If this saying is true, the media perpetually hoodwinked by Hamas must stagger under a burden of shame so gargantuan that they no longer feel it. Legacy media outlets from CNN to the AP to BBC breathlessly ran Hamas’s false claim on Sunday, hours before a radical Islamist illegal immigrant torched elderly Jews with his homemade flamethrowers.

Even after Hamas’s first claim was proven false, the BBC credulously repeated Hamas’s second claim about Israel killing civilians on Tuesday. Although credit goes to The Washington Post when, on Tuesday, they corrected their erroneous Sunday reporting, “The article failed to make clear if attributing the deaths to Israel was the position of the Gaza health ministry or a fact verified by The Post.”

Since Hamas is the only government in Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry is effectively an organ (a brash, propaganda-playing pipe organ) of Hamas. The Washington Post’s correction stopped short of apologizing for ever believing Hamas propaganda in the first place.

The target of Hamas’s most recent propaganda blasts is the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a U.S.-run program with Israeli security that delivers humanitarian aid directly to Gazan civilians, bypassing both Hamas and the United Nations. “Until now, Hamas has used the aid distribution networks of the U.N. to maintain … its regime and to maintain its chokehold on the Palestinians in Gaza,” explained Caroline Glick, a senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on “Washington Watch.” “Suddenly, they’ve lost that, which is the one thing that has kept them in power the whole time.”

Previously, humanitarian aid in Gaza was distributed through various U.N. agencies, some of whom are deeply entangled with Hamas. The terrorists routinely stole the aid for their own fighters and resold it to Gazan civilians for a price, said Glick. “Hamas has been bilking them for all the funds … which is just net profit. They didn’t pay for any of this food. They just stole it with the U.N. green-lighting the whole process,” she said. “That’s the money that Hamas has used to recruit new terrorists to its terror army, because they have lots of cash.”

But GHF distribution nodes cut out the terrorist middleman. “This is in Israel’s interest. This is in the people of Gaza’s interest,” Glick insisted. “The only forces that are being harmed by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund’s distribution of aid in Gaza are Hamas and, apparently, the United Nations.”

“Now the whole thing is being exposed,” Glick added. And, given the existential threat GHF aid poses to its legitimacy and survival, Hamas is “doing everything that they possibly can to scuttle the program.” Given their own complicity, the U.N. has largely chosen to back up Hamas’s claims.

The most compelling lies are built upon a grain of truth, and Hamas’s propaganda about Israeli soldiers shooting civilians does appear to be based upon reports of shootings surrounding the aid distribution centers. On Wednesday, GHF hubs paused operations due to the violence until the IDF can extend its security perimeter and provide safer access routes.

“Is it beyond Hamas to stage these violent incidents around these distribution sites to try and create this narrative for the media?” asked Family Research Council President Tony Perkins rhetorically.

“Of course it’s not beyond Hamas. They did October 7th. Nothing is beyond Hamas,” Glick responded, before accusing Hamas of doing just that. “Hamas is accusing Israel day after day after day of committing the crimes that Hamas itself is committing,” she said. “They’ve been shooting at people trying to get to the aid depots and trying to terrorize people and threaten people with execution if they dare to go and receive aid directly from the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.”

This is hardly the first time Hamas has been caught in a lie or that the global media has believed them too quickly. On October 18, 2023 — mere days after Hamas’s terrorist incursion into Israel — the “Gaza Health Ministry” (a.k.a. Hamas) accused Israel of bombing a hospital in Gaza, killing up to 500 people, mostly civilians.

Global media outlets dutifully repeated the Hamas narrative, provoking a firebombing at a synagogue in Berlin and provoking a crowd in Lebanon to storm the U.S. embassy. When the true facts came to light, they showed that the explosion was actually caused by a misfired rocket, which Islamist terrorists were launching at Israel from the hospital parking lot, and that the blast caused nearly no casualties.

As National Review’s Phil Klein noted at the time, Hamas “has a long record of lying to advance its propaganda aims.”

“And it’s working,” Glick glowered, “because AP and Reuters and the BBC and NBC and CNN and ABC have all been promoting this false story that Hamas has created.” Yet again, Hamas’s lies — amplified through the global media megaphone — have resulted in global violence against Jews.

Human beings have evidenced a tendency to sugarcoat our sins ever since Adam made excuses in the garden (Genesis 3:12). This includes indulging the deceptive fantasy that our lies are inconsequential, that they do not divulge a corrupt character — thus, Michael Cohen’s infamous testimony, “I have lied, but I am not a liar.” But the truth is that “those who speak lies” are wicked to the core, worthy of God’s judgment (Psalm 5:6).

As Jesus said to his opponents, “You are doing the works your father did. … You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. … When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:41, 44). Hamas’s habitual lying therefore betrays their character as sons of the evil one.

This character is well-established, and reputable media outlets should treat Hamas’s propaganda with due skepticism. “Eventually,” said Glick, “the truth will come out because Israel, our soldiers, do not shoot at civilians, period.”