LONDON: The Wall Street Journal remains unable to verify claims from a January report suggesting connections between staff from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and Hamas militants.
According to American news website Semafor, the WSJ’s top editor overseeing standards has admitted privately that the allegations, based on Israeli intelligence reports, might not be substantiated.
Elena Cherney, the chief news editor, acknowledged in an email seen by Semafor that the Israeli claims lacked solid evidence but maintained that the initial reporting was neither inaccurate nor misleading.
“The fact that the Israeli claims haven’t been backed up by solid evidence doesn’t mean our reporting was inaccurate or misleading, that we have walked it back, or that there is a correctable error here,” Cherney wrote in an email.
The January report, described as one of the “biggest and most impactful stories about the war,” claimed that 12 UNRWA staff members participated in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, with 10 percent of the agency’s 12,000 workers in Gaza allegedly having ties to Hamas.
This story, based on Israeli intelligence, was later challenged by several international organizations and the UN itself following an independent investigation.
The story had significant repercussions, including a heavy psychological toll on UNRWA workers and a freeze of $450 million in aid by various countries at a critical moment for Gaza, which is facing the threat of famine.
Semafor reported that WSJ reporters had tried and failed to corroborate the 10 percent claim central to the story, raising concerns about the story’s Israeli-leaning nature.
“Our coverage of UNRWA is part of a long reporting effort on the war in Gaza that involves staffers across the newsroom,” a WSJ spokesperson said, affirming that the paper stands by the January story and subsequent reporting.
The incident has highlighted internal friction within the WSJ newsroom since the conflict began, including concerns about Deputy Middle East Bureau Chief Shayndi Raice’s leadership and the controversial social media activity of Carrie Keller-Lynn, the author of the story.
The WSJ has also faced scrutiny for its unbalanced reporting of Gaza events, with Richard Boudreaux, former standards editor, acknowledging the paper “leaned too heavily on Israeli voices and did not include enough Arab perspectives or expert sources.”
