When it comes to the war in Gaza, how is it that the legacy media always defers to the narrative that benefits Hamas? A recent Reuters story illuminates the problem.
Last month, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) produced an internal analysis tracking reports of waste, fraud, and abuse of humanitarian aid in Gaza.
According to that report, between October 2023 and May 2025, USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance received 156 notifications of “fraud, waste, and abuse notifications” from its NGO partners in Gaza, amounting to a loss of more than $4.6 million. The key finding was that “for all 156 incidents, partners did not provide any information in their incident reports alleging SG [sanctioned group] or FTO [foreign terrorist organization] involvement,” according to a slideshow of the findings obtained by The Free Press.
But when the analysis was leaked to legacy news organizations, they reported something completely different.
In late July, first Reuters and then CNN reported that the analysis “found no evidence of systematic theft by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.” ABC later reported that USAID “failed to find any evidence” that Hamas “engaged in widespread diversion of assistance.” Those news organizations didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
There is a world of difference between “notifications” of aid misuse and actual misuse.
