Sorry I wasn’t clear on this. What I meant was that “Israel says” simply says that they made a statement (it doesn’t tell you what to think about that statement). “Israel claims” implies that what Israel is saying is false. It introduces bias by telling you what to think.

“Israel claims” is the truth. Israel has made a claim. It could be true or it could be false. Why should the press spin the story in a way that makes it seem like Israel wouldn’t or doesn’t lie? I think you really want the press to spin the story to convince the public that Israel is doing the right thing here.

I would say “israel says” is more biased than “israel claims”. In fact in order for the story to be most factual it should say “Israel claims there were iranian ties to this airport but we didn’t bother to verify those claims and just took them at their word”. Of course they wouldn’t say that but that’s the real truth. At a minimum they should have added something like “we were not able to verify those claims”.

As an aside your first presumption should be that every military or intelligence statement from any country is at least half a lie.