As documented here earlier in the week, the December 9th terror attack at Ofra junction did not receive any coverage on the BBC News website.
Early on the afternoon (local time) of December 13th a report relating to another terror attack which had taken place a few hours earlier near Givat Asaf appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page under the headline “Two Israelis killed amid spate of West Bank attacks“.
By the time the BBC’s article was published local media had reported that two people had been killed and two severely wounded in the December 13th shooting attack. The first two versions of the BBC’s report however told readers that:
“Two Israelis have been shot dead by a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military says, amid an upsurge of attacks in the area.
One person was also severely injured when the gunman fired at a bus stop. A hunt for the suspect is under way.”
In the initial version of the report readers saw a seventeen-word account of the attack that had taken place three and a half days earlier.
“It took place near the Ofra settlement, Israeli media say, where a separate shooting on Sunday by a Palestinian led to the death of an Israeli baby.”
In the second version of the report readers were told that:
“It took place near the Ofra settlement, where a separate shooting on Sunday by a Palestinian led to the death of an Israeli newborn baby boy.”
Later on the report referred to “a drive by shooting in the West Bank on Sunday that left seven Israelis wounded”, stating:
“Among those was a seven-month pregnant woman, whose newborn baby died on Wednesday after delivery by emergency caesarean.”
The newborn baby – Amiad Israel Ish-Ran – was not named in this BBC report and neither were the victims of the Barkan terror attack that took place in October – although readers did learn the names of two terrorists who perpetrated those attacks.
“The bus stop shooting comes just hours after Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinians who they said were behind two recent high-profile attacks in the West Bank.
One of them was Salah Barghouti, 29, who was killed in an operation in a village north of Ramallah late on Wednesday, according to Israeli security forces.
They said he was behind a drive by shooting in the West Bank on Sunday that left seven Israelis wounded. […]
Israeli security forces also announced the end of a two-month manhunt for Ashraf Naalwa, 23, who was accused of an attack at a settlement industrial park on 7 October that left two Israelis dead and another injured.”
Notably, the BBC had itself reported in October that Naalwa had been identified in CCTV footage as he fled the scene “carrying a rifle”.
As usual the BBC’s report studiously avoids using the words terror, terrorism and terrorists despite the December 9th attack near Ofra having been identified as a terror attack by the British Ambassador to Israel, the French Ambassador to Israel and the EU Ambassador to Israel.
The BBC closed its report as follows:
“Meanwhile on Wednesday, Palestinian health officials said a four-year-old boy died several days after being hit with shrapnel in clashes between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli army along the Gaza border. Israel said it will look into the incident.”
As our colleagues at CAMERA have pointed out, “Palestinian health officials” are in fact Hamas and there has been no independent confirmation of the circumstances of the boy’s death.
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