• From April 1 through April 3, Fox News spent just under 17 minutes on the drone strikes.
• Fox mainly covered the strikes with quick correspondent reports and brief headline reads. 
• CNN devoted 4 hours and 13 minutes to reporting on the strikes while MSNBC gave the story 3 hours and 32 minutes of coverage. 

Following condemnation of the attacks on WCK from governments and aid communities, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “deeply regrets” the strike, while the Israeli military labeled it as a “grave mistake.” An independent investigation performed by Bellingcat claimed that “the WCK vehicles bear the hallmarks of a precision strike by inert or low-yield missiles,” and a CNN analysis of video of the incident shows that “three vehicles were hit by separate strikes.” 

According to Haaretz, the drone strike was “not the first incident in which World Central Kitchen staff were wounded in Gaza. On Saturday, an IDF sniper fired at a car headed to a food warehouse in the Khan Yunis area.” Following this incident, WCK had “immediately filed a complaint” and “demanded the army stop the fire toward its staff, and guarantee their safety when distributing food in the Gaza Strip, which is carried out with full coordination."

From April 1 through April 3, Fox News covered the strikes for less than 17 minutes. The network hosted only two guests to discuss the strikes, both of whom defended the Israeli military from claims that the strikes were deliberate.

The network’s first coverage of the killings came on the afternoon of April 2, with Fox correspondent Trey Yingst noting that Israel was “taking credit for what they call a tragic and unintentional strike.”   

On The Faulkner Focus, Fox contributor Joey Jones called insinuations that the strikes were deliberate “irresponsible” and complained that President Joe Biden decried them publicly, suggesting Israel should hold an internal review but the president “isn’t someone to tell them they should do it.” 

Fox News political analyst Brit Hume also undermined allegations that this was a deliberate strike, saying that there was not “much credible evidence … that this was a deliberate attempt to attack” WCK. Hume further claimed, “There are real leading world authorities on civilian casualties in warfare that say that Israel is doing more than they have almost ever seen a country do to try to minimize them.” 

By comparison, Fox devoted nearly 16 minutes in total on April 2, the day after the strike, to covering the singer Shakira's comments that her two sons found the 2023 Barbie film “emasculating” — just short of the amount of time the network devoted to covering the WCK drone strikes over two days. In doing so, the network seemingly hoped to expand upon the right-wing outrage cycle around the movie last year; Fox & Friends spent 5 minutes straight rambling about Barbie, longer than any individual segment the network aired on the WCK attacks.    

Fox News’ lack of coverage of the WCK drone strikes is part of a pattern of the network ignoring clear incidents of Israeli forces attacking civilians. In February, Fox devoted only 12 minutes of coverage to the “flour massacre,” in which Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd of Palestinians gathered near a food aid convoy in Gaza.   

Both CNN and MSNBC covered the strikes far more than Fox. The former clocked in at 4 hours and 13 minutes of coverage while the latter devoted 3 hours and 32 minutes to it. 

Both networks aired detailed segments about the drone strikes on the aid convoy and explained why aid is so critical for Palestinians in Gaza.

As a guest on MSNBC’s The ReidOut, UNRWA's Hani Almadhoun explained that it is “really just scary” and “horrifying” for “humanitarian workers to be targeted,” pointing out that “this situation, sadly, is not the first time a humanitarian worker loses their life.” Almadhoun further explained that “NGOs are being denied access to the north” while Palestinians in Gaza “are on the brink of starvation.” 

CNN anchor Abby Phillips also hosted former WCK volunteer Aparna Branz, who was friends with Damian Sobol, one of the victims of the strike on the WCK convoy. Branz shared that Sobol “exuded goodness” and that his “focus was really on helping the people.” 

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for any of the terms “Israel,” “IDF,” “World Central Kitchen,” “WCK,” “worker,” “seven,” or “Netanyahu” or any variation of either of the terms “Palestine” or “Gaza” within close proximity of any of the terms “death,” “die,” “dead,” “strike,” “attack,” or “bomb” or any variation of either of the terms “kill” or “murder” from April 1, 2024, when an Israeli strike hit a World Central Kitchen aid convoy in Gaza, through April 3, 2024.

We also searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for either of the terms “Barbie” or “Shakira” from April 1, 2024, when Shakira made comments about the Barbie movie in an April 1 interview with Allure magazine, through April 3, 2024. 

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when the April 1 Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy in Gaza or Shakira’s comments on the Barbie movie were the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the strike or Shakira’s comments. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the strike or Shakira’s comments with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the strike or Shakira’s comments without another speaker engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the strike or Shakira’s comments scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We rounded all times to the nearest minute.