I used to love reading The Times of Israel. Now it makes me sick.

The Times of Israel, once a respected outlet for balanced coverage of Israel’s complex reality, has descended into a mire of moral equivalence and journalistic failure that rivals even Haaretz (and yes, it breaks my heart to write this).

Its headline yesterday, “IDF soldier killed in Strip; Hamas-linked agency raises day’s Gazan death toll to 91”, is a grotesque example of this decline (which is sadly happening more and more), a nauseating display of reporting that strips away context, ignores the root causes of the conflict, and equates the death of an Israeli soldier with unverified casualty figures from a Hamas-linked source.

Let’s start with the headline itself: By placing the death of Sgt. Yosef Yehuda Chirak, a 22-year-old IDF soldier killed by friendly fire in northern Gaza, alongside a Hamas-affiliated agency’s claim of 91 Gazan deaths, the Times of Israel creates a false equivalence that erases the fundamental reasons for this war.

We didn't ask for this war and we don't want it. Do our soldiers want to be stuck in enemy territory, surrounded by Kabanos, dust, death and destruction? Do they wake up every day, eager to massacre Gazans? Do they hope and pray for the day it's all over and they can get back to living normal lives?

You can bet your life they do.

The war exists because Hamas embeds itself within civilian populations, using schools, hospitals, and mosques as shields, making it nearly impossible for the IDF to target terrorists without risking civilian lives.

Not to mention the atrocities Hamas giggled about on October 7th (and the Ganas, too). Or the fact that our hostages are still in their terror tunnels, being bitten by rats and facing a reality even M. Night Shyamalan couldn't invent.

The article’s reliance on a “Hamas-linked agency” for its Gazan death toll is also massively problematic.

These figures are unverified, do not distinguish between combatants and civilians, and are often inflated to serve Hamas’s narrative, while ignoring the terrorist group’s role in initiating and perpetuating the conflict.

A 2025 study published by the Henry Jackson Society found that Hamas’s Government Media Office distorts data to prosecute its wartime narrative, underrepresenting female and child fatalities relative to their proportion of Gaza’s population, a clear sign of manipulation.

But the Times of Israel parrots these numbers. It's worse than lazy journalism; it is complicity in Hamas’s information war.

Worse still, the article fails to highlight the extraordinary lengths to which the IDF goes to minimize civilian casualties, lengths that have been acknowledged even by outside observers.

The IDF has a history of telegraphed operations, warning civilians to evacuate areas like northern Gaza before ground campaigns, often at the cost of losing the element of surprise and allowing Hamas to reposition its fighters and hostages. A 2024 Newsweek opinion piece noted that the IDF’s civilian-to-combatant death ratio in Gaza, estimated at roughly 1:1.5 or even 1:1, is historically low for urban warfare, especially given Hamas’s strategy of blending into civilian populations.

But the Times of Israel doesn’t bother to mention this, nor does it address Hamas’s use of human shields, a well-documented tactic that forces the IDF into an impossible position.

The military correspondent behind this debacle, Emanuel “Mannie” Fabian, has completely lost the plot.

Once a respected voice who provided detailed, on-the-ground reporting, Fabian has succumbed to the same sensationalism and lack of context that plagues much of the media’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

His recent articles, including this one, read like sterile dispatches that prioritize shock value over substance, failing to challenge Hamas’s narrative or provide the deeper analysis that Israelis and the world deserve.

Fabian’s reporting no longer reflects the complexity of the conflict; it has become a megaphone for the very propaganda he should be dismantling. He has forgotten that journalism in a time of war is not about neutrality for neutrality’s sake: it is about truth, context, and the courage to call out evil where it exists.

The Times of Israel’s descent into this kind of reporting is not just disappointing; it is dangerous. By equating the death of an IDF soldier with unverified Hamas figures, by ignoring the hostages’ suffering, and by failing to hold Hamas accountable for its tactics, the outlet contributes to a global narrative that vilifies Israel while absolving the terrorists who started this war.

This is not the balanced, responsible coverage the Times of Israel claims to provide (while asking for our money!). It is a betrayal of its readers, its mission, our soldiers and the Israeli people who are fighting for their survival against a ruthless enemy.

If the Times of Israel wants to regain the trust it has lost, it must do better, starting with remembering why this war began and who is truly responsible for the suffering in Gaza. Anything less is unacceptable.

And yes, Mannie, I'm looking at you.