On the evening of March 7th the BBC published a report about a counter-terrorism operation which had taken place several hours earlier in Jenin.
Credited to Yolande Knell and Raffi Berg, the report is headlined ‘Six Palestinians killed in Israeli army raid in Jenin’. Like that headline, its opening paragraphs fail to inform readers that all six were members of terrorist organisations. [emphasis added]
“Six Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli army raid in Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry has said.
Israel’s prime minister said one of the dead had been responsible for killing two Israeli brothers last month.”
Later in the report readers are told that:
“The Palestinian health ministry listed the dead as five men in their 20s and one man of 49, identified as Abdel Fattah Kharousha.
It is understood that he was a member of the Palestinian militant group Hamas from Nablus and had served time in an Israeli jail. Palestinian sources suggest that he carried out the shooting of the brothers on 26 February.”
By the time the BBC published its report, local media had identified all six of the dead together with their terror affiliations.
“Palestinian officials said Abdel Fattah Hussein Kharousha, 49, was killed in the operation. The Shin Bet security agency said Kharousha, a Hamas member from the Askar refugee camp near Nablus, was the terrorist who opened fire on an Israeli car driving through Huwara on February 26, killing Israeli brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv. […]
Others killed were named as Muhammad Wael Ghazawi, 26, Tariq Ziad Mustafa Natour, 27, Ziad Amin Zaraini, 29, Mutasim Nasser Sabbagh, 22, and Muhammad Ahmad Salim Khalouf, 22.
Palestinian media identified Khalouf, Ghazawi, and Zaraini as members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terror group loosely affiliated with the Palestinian Authority’s ruling Fatah party.
Sabbagh and Kharousha were named by Hamas as members and “fighters” in the terror group.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad in a statement said the sixth Palestinian, Natour, was a member.”
It is therefore unclear why the BBC’s report fails to inform readers that all six of the “Palestinians killed” were terrorist operatives, particularly given the corporation’s unsatisfactory record on the issue of Hamas and Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades involvement in the rise in terrorism over the past two years.
The BBC’s report states:
“The raid on Tuesday afternoon took place in a refugee camp which is a frequent target for Israeli operations against Palestinian militants.
There were reports of heavy exchanges of gunfire, while videos on social media showed smoke billowing from a building and helicopters flying over a long line of military vehicles.
The Israeli military says it used shoulder-launched missiles as it pursued the wanted man and claims local armed fighters shot at troops from an ambulance.”
Seeing as there is video documentation of the terrorists’ use of an ambulance, it is unclear why the BBC chose to unnecessarily qualify the IDF’s statement.
Over a third of the wordcount of Knell and Berg’s report relates to a different story: the February 26th rampage by vigilante Israelis in the town of Huwara. As readers may recall, the BBC News website did not produce any stand-alone reporting on the terror attack in which Hillel and Yagel Yaniv were murdered but did publish three reports (two of which are repromoted as the only links appearing in this report) about the later attacks in Huwara.
Knell and Berg’s report closes with the bizarre claim that “a surge of violence” that can be traced back to 2021 began “this year”.
“There has been a surge of violence between Israel and the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem this year.
At least 70 Palestinians – militants and civilians – have been killed by Israeli forces, and on the Israeli side, 13 people have been killed in attacks, all civilians, except for a paramilitary police officer.”
As is now standard practice in BBC reporting, Berg and Knell once again avoid informing readers exactly how many of those “70 Palestinians” killed in 2023 were uninvolved civilians and fail to clarify that the overwhelming majority were terrorists and/or males engaged in violence at the time, despite the fact that that information is available in the public domain.
Related Articles:
AN UNHELPFUL BBC BACKGROUNDER ON ‘ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN VIOLENCE’
Gary Lineker, who can well afford to be left-wing, will probably soon give us his biased view on the Israeli-Hamas conflict’s rights and wrongs. Sanction the BBC !