The tragic death of Daniel Wultz (pictured), the US teen critically injured in last month's suicide bombing in Tel Aviv is reported on Backspin, along with a powerful piece by the New York Times, which attended the funeral of newly-married Lior Anidzar, who has also succumbed to his injuries. Backspin also relays the boasts of Islamic Jihad which did not appear in most mainstream media. For these terrorists, Wultz, an American Jew, was an ideal target:

"We are sorry there was not more of this stuff. American and Zionist - this is the best target combination we could dream of. This is the ideal target. He is a young American who came to encourage the enemy to continue his war against us," Abu Nasser said...

Medical workers... are operating under the assumption the battle may yet spill inside the hospital doors....

To avoid such confrontations, doctors now are processing patients according to faction. One side's casualties get the briefest of triage at Kamal Adwan before being moved to other hospitals, the rest are admitted for full treatment. None appear interested in playing politics with a scalpel. They simply don't know what else to do.

Backspin has also featured reports that expose the real agenda of Hamas terrorists, even as many in the mainstream media continue to claim that the terror organization is abiding by a self-proclaimed "ceasefire".

This, the case recently as two Hamas figures confessed to Israeli security that they were setting up a terror cell to attack Israelis and kidnap soldiers. The Jerusalem Post reported that: "The two said that they were under instruction from senior Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip who told them that they were to be absorbed into the West Bank from Gaza."

Meanwhile, reports appear to suggest that Hamas is stockpiling weapons in Jordan while using the Popular Resistance Committees to mount terror by proxy against Israel. In addition, Israeli media reports that the Israeli Navy has thwarted two attempts within one and a half weeks to smuggle arms from Egypt into the Gaza Strip by sea.

Let us know what you think about these and other issues as they break - head to Backspin to submit your comments!

BBC REPORT STIRS UP CYNICISM IN THE TIMES

Writing in the Times of London, Martin Walker, the Editor of United Press International responds to the astonishing claim of the independent report into the BBC's Israeli-Palestinian coverage that the BBC could be said to be biased in favor of Israel:

This produced mocking guffaws in my own newsroom, where some of the BBC's greatest hits - or perhaps misses - remain fresh in the memory....

These are isolated examples, but they stick longer in the memory because they are reinforced by a broader pattern of coverage that seems to play down that Israel is a democracy that elects Israeli Arabs to the Knesset and which does not engage in systematic terrorism and suicide bombing of civilians. So it was startling to read the report for the BBC governors finding so much bias in favour of Israelis.

Read and comment on the whole article here.

CONFRONTING HISTORICAL DISTORTIONS

As Israel finishes celebrating its 58th birthday, so too the Palestinians commemorate the events of 1947-48 by promoting their own narrative, some of which has been used to distort the history of Israel's creation in order to demonize the Jewish state. To respond to some of the articles that are likely to appear in media outlets, HonestReporting recommends a few web resources to help improve your historical knowledge:

HonestReporting's Brief History of the Region

Myths and Facts: A Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Jewish Virtual Library - The Palestinian Refugees

Beyond Images