New York Magazine Intelligencer reporter Eric Levitz responded Sunday to backlash over a piece he wrote about whether or not babies in Israel were actually “beheaded” by Hamas terrorists, saying it wasn’t fully proven that this happened.
“According to this report,” Levitz wrote in response to an investigation by an international team of forensic pathologists, “Hamas militants tied a parent and child together and then burned them alive.”
“Last night I claimed that this report indicated that babies were being beheaded,” Levitz wrote Sunday. “That was an exaggeration. I should have said that the report stated that babies were found headless, a fact that lends credence to the claims of beheadings but does not prove them.”
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The AP’s GAZA reporter repeatedly criticized Israel on social media, saying the repressive regime should be “overthrown.”
Secret Service reporter Eric Levitz responded to backlash over a post he wrote about whether or not babies in Israel were actually being “beheaded” by Hamas terrorists. (Getty Images)
He explained the exact definition of a beheading in parentheses. “(The verb behead) has several definitions and is sometimes used in the sense of beheading; the report indicates that Hamas has beheaded babies in this sense. But the term can also mean a form of execution with a knife, and we have no confirmation of beheading in this sense)[.]”
The reporter added that he did not think “much is gained from this distinction” because whether the infants were beheaded or not, both cases were an example of “terrible atrocities,” he wrote. “But some people disagree[.]”
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Levitz has since directly responded to the backlash he received over his post. “Many misinterpreted this tweet as an apology for Hamas. That’s not the case. The tweet comes on the heels of a tweet in which I highlighted the fact that Hamas burned families alive. I recently wrote an article expressing my moral distaste for left-wing apologies for Hamas.”
He added a lengthy thread in which he said his claim was purely journalistic in nature and not intended to lend credence to the idea that the media is lying about the extent of Hamas atrocities. He pointed out that a pathology report could not conclusively establish decapitation, although critics accused him of splitting hairs.
“It is no better to burn a baby alive than to behead it. What matters is that irreplaceable lives have been destroyed and each death leaves a hole in the world of everyone who loved them,” he wrote. “Please understand that my insistence on accuracy about what exactly happened to these murdered innocents is based solely on the desire to accurately reflect the findings of the forensic pathologists’ report.”
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The author received scathing criticism for his first article. Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote in response to Levitz’s initial post: “Only a few babies have been found without heads. Could be nothing.”
A National Review writer quipped, “I read this as exquisite satire, but it’s not, is it?”
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Levitz pointed directly to an article he wrote titled “A Left That Refuses to Condemn Mass Murder Is Doomed,” which he described as an example of his “moral aversion to left-wing apologies for Hamas.”
“It is no exaggeration to say that many left-wing supporters of Palestine have celebrated Hamas’s atrocities,” Levitz wrote in that article, highlighting particularly egregious examples of what he called a “vocal minority of pseudo-radicals” publicly denouncing Hamas support.
The debate over the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israeli and other citizens continues to rage on campuses across the United States.
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Recently, Columbia Business School assistant professor and Israeli-American Shai Davidai called Columbia University President Minouche Shafik a “coward” for his silence on “pro-terror” groups at the school. (Jennifer Mitchell for Fox News Digital)
Recently, Columbia Business School assistant professor and Israeli-American Shai Davidai called Columbia University President Minouche Shafik a “coward” for his silence on “pro-terror” groups at the school.
“For the pro-terror organizations at Columbia, my seven-year-old son is a legitimate target of resistance simply because he is Israeli,” Davidai said in an impassioned speech on campus.
Levitz did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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