A Reuters story in February falsely claiming that a murdered Israeli victim was a Mossad agent was retracted on Thursday following an investigation by CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
Titled “Gaza’s mother’s hopes for return of long-jailed son dashed,” the story wrote that Diaa El Agha, who was sentenced to 99 years in prison for killing Amatzia Ben-Haim with a pick axe, had murdered an “Israeli Mossad agent,” a claim Reuters acknowledged it could not authenticate.
Meaning, they took the word of the Palestinian family as fact.
Agha was set to be freed during Phase 1 of the ceasefire/hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas in Gaza but was delayed by Israel.
Both the English and the Arabic versions of the article misidentified the victim, Ben-Haim, as a Mossad agent. Neither mentioned him by name.
The wire service subsequently took the article down, adding that there would be no substitute piece.
The story was picked up by other news outlets, including Yahoo, that have also taken it down.
“Why is Reuters publishing articles without doing prior investigations?” wrote the National Jewish Assembly. “The damage has already been done by sharing a story which they cannot verify. They need to do the research FIRST.”
Israel’s National Insurance website, which is dedicated to civilian terror victims, identified Ben-Haim as having retired from the Sayeret Matkal military. He had since retired from military service and began work in a factory on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, programming irrigation systems for farmers, according to CAMERA. He was murdered accompanying a farmer while diagnosing a broken irrigation system in a greenhouse.
