Between January 1st and March 31st 2017, a total of ninety-one reports with content relating to Israel and/or the Palestinians appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page. Seven of those reports were carried over from December 2016.
Some of the reports were produced by other departments (e.g. BBC Business) or appeared on other pages of the website (e.g. ‘Europe’ or ‘US & Canada’) but were also posted on the Middle East page.
Although the Israeli security services recorded 321 terror attacks during the first quarter of 2017 (see ‘related articles’ below), just one of those attacks received coverage on the BBC News website.
(The dates in brackets represent the period of time in which a report was available to visitors to the website’s Middle East page.)
Jerusalem lorry attack: Four Israeli soldiers killed (8/1/17 to 9/1/17)
Jerusalem attack: Uncle of the lorry driver speaks out (8/1/17 to 12/1/17)
Jerusalem attack eyewitness: ‘I saw the truck hitting the soldiers’ (8/1/17 to 17/1/17)
Jerusalem lorry attack: ‘I fired until my magazine was empty’ (9/1/17 to 18/1/17)
Netanyahu: ‘We will overcome terror attacks’ (8/1/17)
Jerusalem lorry attacker ‘was IS supporter’ (9/1/17 to 10/1/17)
One article (carried over from December) related to a terror warning issued by the Israeli security services:
Israel warns of New Year terror threat in India (30/12/16 to 1/1/17) discussed here
Two articles related to Hamas:
Israel will no longer return bodies of Palestinian Hamas militants (1/1/17 to 2/1/17) discussed here
Israeli soldiers ‘caught in Hamas online honey trap’ (12/1/17 to 13/1/17)
Two articles related to Syria:
Syria accuses Israel of bombardment (13/1/17 to 15/1/17) discussed here
Israel’s Arrow anti-missile system ‘in first hit’ (17/3/17 to 20/3/17) discussed here
In all, 12.09% of the BBC News website’s reports in Q1 covered stories relating to security/terrorism. The additional topics found in the BBC’s coverage of Israel and the Palestinians during the first quarter of 2017 will be discussed in part two of this post.
Related Articles:
BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – January 2017
BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – February 2017
BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – March 2017
Reviewing BBC News website portrayal of Israel and the Palestinians in Q4 2016 – part two (includes links to previous reports)
