CNN host forced to apologize after downplaying murders of Israeli family at hands of terrorists

CNN host Christiane Amanpour apologized Monday for previous reporting in which she appeared to downplay the murder of an Israeli family.

What is the background?

On April 7, two Israeli-British sisters — 16-year-old Rina Dee and 20-year-old Maia Dee — were shot and killed while traveling in their car outside of a settlement in the West Bank. Their mother, Lucy Dee, was also wounded in the attack. She died several days later.

Israeli officials condemned the attack as an act of terrorism, and Hamas — a terrorist group based in Palestine — later praised the attack.

Three days later on April 10, Amanpour described the incident as a "shootout" while interviewing Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh about violent happening in the region.

What did she say now?

On her show Monday, Amanpour issued an apology for falsely describing the murders as having occurred in a "shootout."

She said:

On April 10, I referred to the murders of an Israeli family: Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee, the wife and daughters of Rabbi Leo Dee. I misspoke and said they were killed in a "shootout" instead of a shooting. I have written to Rabbi Leo Dee to apologize and make sure that he knows that we apologize for any further pain that may have caused him.

The apology only came after Amanpour faced repeated demands for a mea culpa. Israel's Foreign Ministry even got involved in the matter earlier this month.

Rabbi Leo Dee — the husband and father of the murdered victims — rejected Amanpour's apology, saying the one she wrote to him is "not worth the paper it’s printed on."

"The fact that they said they were killed and not brutally murdered by evil Palestinian terrorists funded by Iran is the typical ‘CNN-ism,’ where they basically try and make this a comparison between the victim and the terrorists," Rabbi Dee said.

Anything else?

Israelis security forces believe they killed the two Hamas terrorists responsible for the deaths of the Dee family. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 4 that Israel had "settled accounts" with the terrorists.

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