In an indication that Hamas is winning the propaganda war a mere 12 days after committing the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Arab and Western leaders — and the New York Times — have quickly adopt the terrorists’ version of events that accuses Israel of killing hundreds of innocents in an air attack on a Gaza hospital. 

Hamas issued a statement Tuesday evening, declaring that some 500 people were killed and hundreds injured in an Israeli air attack on Al Ahali al Arabi, a hospital at Gaza City. Prime Minister Netanyahu then countered that Islamic Jihad rockets shot toward Israel were the culprit. 

Even before the Israeli version came out, the Hamas version was almost universally adopted as gospel. The Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, immediately left Amman, Jordan, where he was scheduled to participate in a summit with President Biden Wednesday, and declared a three-day period of mourning across the Palestinian territories. 

Jordan then unilaterally announced that it will cancel the planned summit, which was designed to discuss humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians, Israel’s Channel 12 television is reporting. The Israeli embassy at Amman was besieged by hostile protesters. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and several other Arab countries immediately issued condemnations. American press outlets joined in. 

The Times led its website with the headline, “Israeli Strikes Hits Gaza Hospital, Killing 500, Palestinian Health Ministry says.” Like all other Gaza authorities, the health ministry is controlled by Hamas. 

Western leaders were quick to wag fingers as well. “The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable,” Prime Minister Trudeau said. “International law needs to be respected in this and in all cases. There are rules around wars and it’s not acceptable to hit a hospital.”

As it turns out, all that was wrong. More than an hour after the initial report from Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces spokesman issued a statement on its official Telegram channel. “Based on analysis of the IDF’s operational systems, a salvo of rockets aimed at Israel flew close to the hospital when it was hit,” it said. “Based on intelligence from several of our sources, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital.” 

Mr. Netanyahu repeated the text in English and added in Hebrew that the “barbaric terrorists are responsible for the hit on the hospital. Those who murder our children also murder their children.”  That sentiment was also expressed by the leader of the opposition in the Knesset, Yair Lapid.

Earlier, another opposition Knesset member, Avigdor Liberman, wrote on X that the cause of the explosion was “likely a ‘work accident’” — an Israeli formulation for a common phenomenon in the war going back years: failed attacks by Hamas and its allies that hit Palestinians instead of the intended Israelis.

“The explosion indicates,” Mr. Liberman said, “that under the hospital there was a large cache of explosives and rockets, which is a war crime.”

As several commentators in Israel noted, for 11 days many on American campuses and in newsrooms have been raising endless doubts and quibbling over details of the October massacre of more than 1,400 Israeli citizens. The same people are adopting the Hamas version of a deadly incident in Gaza without even waiting to hear Israel’s detailing of the facts.