NYT deletes line saying Israelis ‘view themselves’ as Oct. 7 victims, citing 'editing error'

The New York Times removed a sentence from an article on the Israeli documentary NAZA and added an editor’s note on Wednesday after acknowledging that the wording inadvertently suggested that Israelis’ status as victims of the October 7 massacre was a matter of perception.

The sentence appeared in a Monday article by NYT correspondent Isabel Kershner examining the backlash in Israel against NAZA, a documentary by Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor that focuses on Palestinian civilian deaths during the war in Gaza.

The original version stated: “But Israelis still largely view themselves as the victims of Oct. 7.”

The sentence appeared immediately after a passage saying Israelis remained divided over responsibility for the political, military, and intelligence failures preceding the Hamas-led attack. The article then noted that around 1,200 people were killed in Israel and approximately 250 were taken hostage on October 7, 2023.

Following criticism of the wording, the NYT deleted the sentence and appended an editor’s note to the article.

“Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article included a statement that was intended to convey Israelis’ perception of the government’s military response to the Oct. 7 terror attack in relation to the attacks, but inadvertently suggested that Israelis’ experience as terror victims was a matter of perception. It has been removed from the article,” the note said.

The NYT’s communications account also published the editor’s note on social media on Wednesday. 

NYT under scrutiny after study shows anti-Israel bias

The paper recently faced renewed scrutiny of the newspaper’s coverage of Israel and the Gaza war. A peer-reviewed study published this month examined 1,559 NYT articles from the months following October 7 and argued that the newspaper’s coverage disproportionately framed Palestinians as victims and Israel as the aggressor.

The study’s findings and methodology have become part of a broader debate over how international media have covered the war. The study was detailed earlier this week.

The NYT’s editor’s note did not dispute that Israelis were victims of the October 7 attack. Instead, the newspaper said the deleted wording was meant to describe Israeli perceptions of the government’s military response to the attack, but was phrased in a way that conveyed a different meaning.

The corrected article remains online with the editor’s note attached.