Many people don’t see the NOS’s manipulation — so here is a close read of yet another article in which Israel gets framed.

Criticism of the NOS (the Dutch public broadcaster) usually focuses on the egregious blunders: outright falsehoods, opportunistic accusations with no factual basis. But most of the manipulation in its coverage of Israel and Gaza is far more subtle than that. And precisely because it’s so unobtrusive, people don’t notice the influence.

So today, a close read of one NOS article to show exactly how this works. And yes, in this article too, NOS correspondent David Poort — who previously worked for the propaganda outlet Al Jazeera — produces falsehoods. But they sound credible because they’re embedded in subtle framing and steady indoctrination. I chose this particular article because a reader asked me to take a look at it.

Translation tweet: You’re free to go again, Maaike… they still haven’t learned a thing. The patient called NOS shows a constant — not to say progressive — disease course. 🙄 Will it ever stop?

Structure

The article’s structure is the first thing worth examining. It opens with three paragraphs about deaths in Gaza, citing — as usual — ‘the authorities in Gaza’ as the source, without specifying that this means Hamas, and without questioning that source’s reliability. The supporting sources are unspecified ‘emergency services.’

Only in the fourth paragraph — once the first impression has already settled — does Israel get a say, with the explanation that the IDF was responding to ceasefire violations. Here Poort does add a disclaimer: ‘The Israeli account cannot be independently verified.’ He casts the Israeli statement as suspect, while presenting ‘the authorities in Gaza’ and the ‘emergency services’ as reliable.

The tone is now set, and as ‘supporting evidence’ the NOS runs a video of destruction in Gaza in which interviewees make unverifiable claims. The IDF video showing the detonation of the tunnel from which terrorists launched their attack, and IDF photographs of weapons caches, are nowhere to be seen.

Mustafa Barghouti

In paragraph five, Mustafa Barghouti is introduced as ‘a Palestinian politician in the West Bank and founder of the Palestinian National Initiative.’ He claims that at least seven children and nine women are among the dead, and that Israel has violated the ceasefire 1,320 times so far. No disclaimer follows from David Poort — even though there’s every reason for one.

First, Barghouti is known for his fierce rhetoric against Israel, his praise for Hamas’s atrocities, and his rejection of the Human Rights Watch report on 7 October 2023. He’s been photographed alongside Yahya Sinwar. Doesn’t his testimony need ‘independent verification’ too?

Second, Barghouti’s claim of 1,320 Israeli ceasefire violations is nonsense — unless one takes Al Jazeera, an anti-Israel propaganda network, as a reliable source. When Poort returned to the Netherlands after twelve years at Al Jazeera, he said he wanted to apply what he had learned during twelve years at Al Jazeera — so perhaps that explains something.

Third: why does this NOS article mention only Israeli ceasefire violations? According to Israel, Palestinian terrorists from Gaza have already violated the ceasefire countless times, and unlike Barghouti, the IDF backs this up with detailed information. But apparently Poort prefers quoting Palestinian extremists over Israel, a democratic state under the rule of law.

Ceasefire Terms

Poort then turns to the planned reopening of the Rafah crossing. Quote: ‘Israel says only a limited group of people, following security checks, may cross the border. Humanitarian aid would not be admitted for now. Hamas responded that movement to and from Gaza must be allowed without restrictions, and called on Israel to honour the agreement.’

The unsuspecting NOS reader might take this for balanced reporting — both sides get a say, after all. Unfortunately, David Poort ‘forgot’ to mention what the official agreement actually says about that crossing: Israel must allow limited numbers of the sick and wounded to cross the border. ‘Each individual crossing will require Israeli and Egyptian approval.’

In short: what Israel says here is correct; what Hamas claims — surprise! — is a lie. Wasn’t that worth mentioning? After all, this journalist could easily have ‘independently verified’ it. I at least assume the NOS saved the ceasefire agreement at the time — or at the very least kept a link to a competent outlet that did.

The Role of Hamas

Poort then brings in Rafah residents, whose statements we can only hope he verified. According to him, these residents don’t understand ‘why the violence is flaring up again.’ This would have been a good moment to mention that Hamas still refuses to surrender and hand over its weapons — which does violate the agreement, and does explain the violence.

Since Hamas doesn’t care about its own population, the inequality in Gaza is glaring. Influencers from wealthy families have posted videos of their lavish meals for months now, yet apparently no one can be bothered to make sure incoming aid reaches Gaza’s poorest residents. Their misery is presumably too useful for propaganda purposes.

And so we read in the NOS that the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains critical. The controversial UNRWA — the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, repeatedly linked to Hamas — is presented as a reliable source. Naturally, this anti-Israel organisation reports that aid is mainly being hampered by access restrictions and logistical obstacles. The implication is laid on thick: the problem isn’t Hamas, it’s Israel.

The IDF Has Not Acknowledged Hamas’s Death Toll

Then it’s time for a fresh piece of fake news, delivered so subtly that no court would find fault with it. Quote: ‘On Thursday, a senior Israeli military official acknowledged for the first time that the death toll reported by Gaza’s Ministry of Health is largely accurate.’ The implication: Hamas’s death figures (sorry, the Ministry of Health’s figures…) were correct all along, and now Israel admits it too!

The senior Israeli military official goes unnamed — and for good reason. The IDF never made this statement. On the contrary, the IDF responded to the story with a denial. And yet outlet after outlet ran with it anyway. Perhaps they’re hoping it retroactively justifies their use of Hamas’s death figures, and their dismissal of Israel’s criticism of them.

At the bottom of the article sits a link to another NOS piece about this Israeli ‘admission,’ which contains even more nonsense — such as the claim that an internal Israeli military database shows over 80% of those killed were civilians. This rests on a bizarre selection of the dead that suddenly relabels most terrorists as civilians. Further explanation here.

Every journalist who genuinely follows this dossier knows that Hamas has repeatedly been caught fiddling the figures for propaganda purposes. The UN itself was embarrassed by it — which no doubt helped force Hamas to swallow its most outrageous lies. But even the current figures remain contestable.

The Composition of the Death Toll

The biggest problem — even after the figures have been scaled back to more realistic levels — is establishing the composition of the group of victims. Israeli researchers have been working on this for some time.

First, Hamas makes no distinction between civilian deaths and dead terrorists. Second, Hamas doesn’t count natural deaths separately, even though roughly 15,000 natural deaths would be expected over two years in a population of 2.1 million. Hamas also adds victims of misfired rockets and its own executions to the total.

Once the figures were cleaned up, it quickly became clear that men of fighting age were overrepresented. In December 2025, the Israeli researchers published a thorough analysis of what was known at that point. So this isn’t the IDF — these are independent researchers. They still erred on the side of caution, for instance in estimating the number of natural deaths. Below is their latest update.

It would be refreshing if the NOS based its reporting on this kind of rigorous, readily verifiable analysis, instead of on wild rumours circulating in activist circles. Unfortunately, plenty of media outlets worldwide seem incapable of holding to their own journalistic codes. See the reports and scandals surrounding the BBC’s coverage of Israel.

The Gaza Plan

The closing paragraph is another textbook case of manipulative reporting. Quote: ‘The plan has not yet been worked out in detail, and many elements are sensitive. Neither Israel nor Hamas has commented on it yet. Diplomats stress that further steps depend on the ceasefire holding and on agreements about humanitarian access and reconstruction.’

Unsuspecting NOS readers — and there are still far too many of them — might read this as a neutral conclusion, especially after all the preceding framing. But it is not neutral. Anyone who reads only this article doesn’t know that Hamas is violating the ceasefire and strangling aid to its own population. All they see are accusations against Israel.

And for the Gaza plan to succeed, it matters that Hamas refuses to give up power in Gaza, and always uses ceasefires to dig in (literally!) and rearm. A genuinely neutral closing paragraph would not have left out Hamas’s role.

Conclusion

This article shows the pattern that recurs constantly in NOS coverage. It’s the narrative in which Israel is always the perpetrator and the Palestinians are always the victims. Everything that doesn’t fit is left out; everything that does fit is amplified and propped up with inflated or even false claims.

The perpetrator-victim narrative is baked into the details too: according to this article, 71,000 Palestinians were killed, while on 7 October 2023, 1,100 Israelis died. All Palestinians are portrayed as having been murdered (including those who died of natural deaths), while the murdered Israelis merely ‘died.’ The figure of 1,100 is too low, by the way — since 7 October, more than a thousand additional Israelis have been killed in terrorist attacks, by rockets, and in combat.

Hamas’s role (almost) doesn’t exist for the NOS, because Palestinians are victims. Bizarre accusations against Israel – 1,320 violations! – do not need to be substantiated or put into perspective, because Israelis are perpetrators. Even facts that are easy to verify — like the actual terms of the Gaza plan — do not need to be mentioned if they get in the way of the narrative.

After more than two years of this kind of reporting, it’s hardly surprising that Israeli flags are being burned in Dutch town squares… And by extension, it’s equally unsurprising that one depressing report after another comes out about Jew-hatred in the Netherlands. Because Jews? They’re Zionists. And Zionists want this ‘rogue state’ to keep existing.

The NPO (the umbrella body overseeing Dutch public broadcasting, including the NOS) is steering towards the ‘dismantling’ of Israel, as is also evident from the video below. Those who for years shouted ‘never again’ the loudest are now working hard to make it ‘once again’.

Translation tweet: Never forget how the public broadcaster is contributing to the return of 1940.[Translator’s note: ‘1940’ refers to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, which began that year — a stark historical comparison that Dutch readers recognise immediately] Never forgive how the public broadcaster gives river-to-sea fascists an unlimited platform. Listen to this chilling little chat between two beaming Islamist creeps…

 

This article was originally published in Dutch.

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