Many critics are outraged that a prominent journalist like CNN’s Christiane Amanpour claimed that the Israeli hostages were treated better than the average Gazan.
By Rachel Avraham
CNN‘s Christiane Amanpour claimed on Monday that Israeli hostages were treated “better than the average Gazan” because Hamas used them as bargaining chips, the Jerusalem Post reported. “It’ll take a long, long time for them to recover, physically but also mentally,” Amanpour said live on CNN News Central. “It’s been a terrible, terrible two years for them.”
“They’re probably being treated better than the average Gazan because they are the corns and the chips that Hamas had,” Amanpour said. “Now Hamas has given up all its leverage by giving them all up, so that is a victory for the Israeli side.”
According to the Jerusalem Post, Amanpour faced swift backlash for her comments, prompting her to release a statement on her CNN show Amanpour and send a message on X/Twitter, acknowledging that her comments were “insensitive and wrong.”
Many critics have expressed outrage at Amanpour following her comments. The Independent reported that Richard Grenall, the head of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and one of Trump’s envoys, stated: “She’s literally pro-Hamas.”
“You can feel how mad she is with the release of hostages by Trump,” Grenell claimed, adding that she is a “Republican hating activist.” Omri Ceren, a senior adviser to Senator Ted Cruz, wrote on X that Amanpour is “on the side of genocidal Hamas terrorists. Here she’s trying to cope with them losing, and her cognitive output is stream of consciousness.”
According to the Independent, Gerry Callahan, a radio host who currently hosts a podcast on Newsmax, called Amanpour “one of the biggest pieces of s*** in the mainstream media.” The Independent reported that Internet personality and antisemitism activist Eyal Yakoby said Amanpour’s comment was “absolutely unacceptable from CNN” and reminded people that hostage Evyatar David, “was quite literally forced to dig his own grave.”
The New York Post reported that the timing of her comments — coinciding with the emotional return of the surviving hostages — further inflamed outrage. According to the report, images broadcast across Israel showed emaciated men and women reuniting with relatives after 738 days of captivity in Hamas’ tunnels. Among them was Israeli soldier Matan Angrest, who relatives said was beaten until he lost consciousness, the New York Post added. His mother told local Israeli media that her son spent months confined in pitch darkness. “Many times they found themselves buried in dust under the rubble, trying to climb out and survive,” she said.
Hospital officials said most of the freed captives arrived severely malnourished and suffering from infections and muscle atrophy after years underground, the New York Post added. The pro-Israel media watchdog HonestReporting blasted Amanpour, writing on its X account: “Starved, electrocuted, held in chains & cages underground, forced to dig their own graves. Is that what she considers being treated better than the average Gazan?”
The hostages were taken captive during the October 7th, 2023 massacre, when 1,200 Israelis were brutally murdered and another 251 were taken captive. The 20 living hostages that were just released survived living two full years in Hamas captivity, deprived of the most basic human rights. In order to obtain their freedom, Israel released 2,000 Palestinian cold-blooded terrorists, some of them with Israeli blood on their hands. This was phase one of the cease-fire deal, which was supposed to also include the release of 28 deceased hostages for a proper Jewish burial in Israel. However, so far, Hamas has only released four bodies in violation of the cease-fire agreement.
Photo from – CNN Presents: God’s Warriors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christiane_Amanpour#/media/File:Christiane_Amanpour_June_2008_(cropped).jpg
