Media Releases

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) has expressed its frustration and shock at the ABC Ombudsman’s rejection of its complaint that was an “open and shut” case involving factual errors.

According to AIJAC Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein,  ABC Global Affairs Correspondent John Lyons on ABC Radio and Middle East correspondent Eric Tlozek in an online article, had both claimed that the Lancet medical journal had found that 186,000 Palestinians had died in Gaza from direct and indirect causes since the war broke out on October 7, 2023, after Hamas invaded Israel.

John Lyons told ABC NewsRadio (Oct. 7), “The… official death toll for Gaza is about 41,000 to 42,000. But the… Lancet says they believe that as many as 186,000 Palestinians in Gaza have died as a result of this war. Not just from the bombing, but from people who had cancer, or who had serious medical conditions, heart conditions, have not been able to get any medical treatment because the hospitals aren’t functioning, the water’s bad, kids have died from malnutrition, or from polio.”

He repeated a variation of this on ABC Radio “AM” (Oct. 7) and on ABC NewsRadio’s news briefs (Oct. 8).

Eric Tlozek’s article on October 19 said, “A letter published in July by the medical journal The Lancet, written by three public health researchers, said if a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death was applied, the true death toll at that time would have been 186,000.”

Lyons and Tlozek were both wrong, Dr Rubenstein said.

“There was no statement anywhere in the Lancet claiming that 186,000 Palestinians had died between October 2023 and June 2024, when the latest journal was printed in July.

“The Lancet ran a letter from some researchers that said 186,000 Palestinians might eventually die because of direct and indirect causes related to the war. Not that 186,000 had already died, which is a totally different claim to what the ABC reported,” he explained.

“Anyone can find the letter and they will see that it says, which is, that as of June 2024,  ‘Armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence. Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and non-communicable diseases. The total death toll is expected to be large.’

“The letter writers made a prediction that 186,000 Palestinians may eventually die,” Dr Rubenstein explained.

“It’s an of error fact. Pure and simple. But it is such an extraordinarily serious allegation that it needed to be corrected. So AIJAC wrote to the ABC Ombudsman’s office.”

Dr Rubenstein said AIJAC were astonished that the Ombudsman rejected the complaint and found that Lyons and Tlozek had not erred in claiming 186,000 Palestinians had died as of June 2024, nor was Lyons wrong to repeatedly insist that it was the Lancet itself which had asserted this.

“It boggles the mind that two ABC journalists and an employee in the ABC Ombudsman’s office were unable to comprehend what was clearly stated in the Lancet, and accurately reported in other media outlets.

“The Guardian – a newspaper hostile to Israel – managed to accurately report in July that a letter in the Lancet, not the Journal itself, was making a prediction that the ultimate death toll could evetually be 186,000,” he said.

“The ABC has a charter obligation to be accurate in what it reports. Its own editorial guidelines warn employees that the more contentious an issue, the greater the need for accuracy. The general public should be greatly concerned that it cannot rely upon the ABC’s frontline reporters to get it right, and then cannot trust that the ABC Ombudsman’s Office will step in to correct basic errors of fact like those made by Lyons and Tlozek.”