(It will soon become clear why we showed a snapshot of their tweet, rather than of the headline of the actual article.)
In our complaint, we noted that article’s claims, based on early and unsubstantiated Palestinian claims that the victim was “Palestinian” and that he was killed by “settlers, were wrong. The victim was an Arab citizen of Israel, and he was reportedly killed by soldiers (not settlers) during a stone throwing incident which the army claimed was instigated by Palestinians.
We sent them an article by Times of Israel published around the same time as the Times article, which reported the following:
The victim of last night’s incident was named as Khalil Salem Khalawi, 37, although some reports said his surname was Ziadeh. He was an Israeli citizen but lived in the West Bank Palestinian village of Wadi Rahhal, south of Bethlehem.
According to the IDF, the incident began after Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli vehicles on a highway in the area. Israeli settlers arrived in the village area to confront the Palestinians and a clash erupted, according to the military.
IDF troops who were dispatched to the scene opened fire, hitting several Palestinians amid the clash.
The IDF says it is aware that the man was shot dead amid the incident, and three others were wounded.
Following our complaint, Times editors evidently removed the article, and changed the URL.
Here’s the original URL, which, as you can see, includes the original false claim from the article:
However, that URL now redirects to a different one, and to a completely different article, one focusing almost entirely on the IDF’s anti-terror operation in the northern West Bank that began yesterday.
Here’s the new URL:
Here’s the headline of the new article:
The only mention of the violence in Bethlehem which resulted in the death of an Arab-Israeli man is in the following sentence, 16 paragraphs down.
On Tuesday an Arab-Israeli citizen was shot dead in the West Bank after a confrontation with settlers.
There is no mention by Times editors that they effectively ‘disappeared’ the original article, or that the claims made in that piece were inaccurate.
