Gaza Doctor Schools CNN Anchor: “This Isn’t Just a Crisis, It’s Genocide”

Advocates for human rights pointed out a noteworthy occasion on Friday where a major American media outlet featured a pro-Palestinian perspective to clarify the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza.

Earlier in the week, CNN’s “News Central” broadcast a discussion segment marking the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, attack led by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent retaliatory war by Israel. Anchor Kate Bolduan reported that approximately 1,200 individuals were killed during the Hamas attack—though she omitted that some casualties were due to “friendly fire” by Israeli forces or under the Hannibal Directive—and that another 250 were abducted.

Bolduan also conceded that close to 42,000 Palestinians have been killed and an additional 2 million displaced by Israeli military actions, describing the situation in Gaza as a “desperate humanitarian crisis.”

“A humanitarian crisis is what you encounter during a hurricane or an earthquake.”

The anchor inquired Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, an American pediatric intensive care specialist who had volunteered at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in Gaza’s central region, for her viewpoint.

“Truthfully, you face a humanitarian crisis during events like hurricanes or earthquakes,” responded Haj-Hassan. “This is not a humanitarian crisis.”

“Kate, I want to make this very clear for your audience, this is genocide,” emphasized the doctor.

Haj-Hassan elaborated:

When 70% of those killed are women and children, when the population suffers from severe shortages of food, water, and medicine, when there are continuous assaults on hospitals, clinics, and aid distribution points, when more United Nations workers have been killed in Gaza than in any other conflict, when over 900 families have been wiped out and removed from civil records, when over 17,000 children are orphaned, when bakeries, aid stations, churches, mosques, and schools are targeted, and just in the past 24 hours, including a hospital bombing today—as you just reported—the very hospital where I worked, where there is a relentless effort to maintain life.

“It’s incredibly frustrating to repeatedly hear it framed in the media in such a misleading manner, Kate,” Haj-Hassan stated. “The coverage is misleading. After 365 days of this. The death tolls reported are so outdated, we have no exact figure of the casualties.”

“I am genuinely concerned about what we’ll find when things settle. History books will document this,” she continued. “And nations, along with media agencies, will have to confront their significant role in the genocide of an entire people and the destruction of humanitarian laws and order.”

Some have noted the lack of voices like Haj-Hassan’s in the mainstream U.S. media coverage of Gaza, which predominantly supports Israel and seldom uses the term “genocide”—even as Israel faces trial for this very accusation at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The New York Times, for instance, has directed its reporters to avoid terms like “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and even “occupied territory,” despite Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestine and a recent ICJ ruling declaring the occupation an apartheid crime that must end immediately.

“The media may be excused for overlooking a well-concealed story. For overlooking certain details,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, on social media Friday. “But when a genocide is visible to all and you assist in hiding it, forgiveness is not forthcoming.”

Another user on social media offered mild commendation for Bolduan—who has faced criticism from Israel’s advocates for prior interviews where defenders of Palestine accused Israel of genocide—commenting that the anchor “did not seem pleased” to hear what Haj-Hassan was saying.

“It’s difficult to tell if it was because the truth is so dreadful or because CNN does not wish to report that truth—but she did allow her to speak it,” remarked the user about Bolduan.

Claims of Israeli genocide continue to be a contentious and almost forbidden topic in the United States, which provides substantial military aid and diplomatic protection to Israel, including multiple vetoes against United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions that received broad international support.

In the U.S., Palestinians, Palestinian Americans, and human rights organizations are urging the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a lawsuit they filed accusing President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin of complicity in the Gaza genocide.

In July, a panel of three judges at the federal court dismissed the lawsuit, which the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California had initially ruled might plausibly constitute a genocide in violation of international law, but dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds.