We are disappointed by The Connecticut Mirror’s decision to publish Alan Stein’s factually inaccurate Dec. 4 opinion piece, “In the midst of the Gaza nightmare, a light flickers, then dies,” in which Stein repeats unsubstantiated and inflammatory claims about Hamas’s conduct on Oct. 7 and the Palestinian prisoners exchanged in the Nov. 24 deal.

Stein claims that children were “beheaded on Oct. 7,” a claim that has been widely repeated to justify Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza but which has little evidence outside of uncorroborated statements by Israeli politicians and IDF personnel. Haaretz, in a Dec. 4 story, cites the proliferation of unverified stories and conflicting testimony about babies beheaded or otherwise mutilated on Oct. 7, while the The Washington Post, in a Nov. 22 fact-checking piece, urges caution about repeating the ‘beheaded babies’ claim, observing that “details are still sparse.”

The Post also notes the comments of numerous scholars and Hamas experts who testified that the group has no history of beheadings — although such behavior would fit well with Israel’s disinformation campaign to link Hamas with unrelated Islamist groups like ISIS, who do engage in beheadings.

Stein goes on to describe how other children on Oct. 7 “had their limbs torn off so their Hamas torturers could enjoy watching them bleed to death.” Again, is there any evidence of this — of either the willful amputation of children’s limbs, or the purported sadistic motivations of Hamas fighters in doing so?

Stein laments that “terrorists” were freed on Nov. 24, seeming to lump all of the freed Palestinian prisoners into that category. Never mind that the prisoners included women accused of such offenses as “incitement on social media,” teenagers jailed for offenses like “stone-throwing,” and others, including minors, being held in “administrative detention” without charges or trial based on “secret evidence,” awaiting their turn in military kangaroo courts with 99.74% conviction rates. It is disturbing that the Mirror would repeat this “terrorist” libel against people not convicted of any crime. This type of rhetoric, as we are seeing with 15,000+ Palestinians now dead, has fatal consequences.

As security and terrorism experts Colin P. Clarke and Michael Kenney observed in a recent Politico article, “Unlike ISIS, some of Hamas’ goals are actually political, and so there will be no effective solution to the crisis unless it also includes a political resolution.” Giving a platform to Islamophobic and dehumanizing speech — not least, describing an exchange of human beings as a “hostages-for-terrorists” deal — doesn’t get us any closer to that solution.

Jake Gagne and Leah Shrestinian are program managers at Yale University.