And because the media has either reported Hamas claims with a straight face, or ignored the ones that are clearly ludicrous such as their claims of major military victories, Hamas has no disincentive from making up bigger and bigger lies.
Here's the latest claim as reported by Turkey's TRTWorld:
The Israeli army has looted approximately $25 million in money and artefacts from Gaza since October 7.The Gaza Media Office said on Saturday it received dozens of testimonies by residents of Gaza reporting the theft of money, gold, and artefacts "estimated at 90 million shekels over the past 92 days by the Israeli occupation army."It said theft operations occurred in various ways, such as those at Israeli checkpoints.For example at Salah al Din Street, Israeli troops stole bags containing valuable possessions such as money, gold and artefacts from the displaced people who had moved from northern Gaza to the south.
The IDF didn't set up any checkpoints on Salah al-Din Road. They didn't stop people from moving and they didn't inspect bags. This is all fiction.
The original charge of massive theft came from the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor which has a long track record of fabricating charges against Israel, and no media has bothered to expose it as a pro-Hamas propaganda outlet pretending to be a respected NGO. (Euro-Med also claimed that they had a video of IDF soldiers selling gold jewelry they had stolen in Gaza to a Palestinian shop in the West Bank, which is as ridiculous as it sounds.)
There is no disincentive for lying, because the media simply parrots even the most ludicrous claims. And the reason is that there is an underlying layer of antisemitism that makes even the most obvious lies seem truthful when the reporters believe that Jews are thieving liars.
