BBC coverage of Egypt murder links to previous inaccurate report

On May 8^th the BBC News website published a report by Kathryn Armstrong under the headline “Egypt probes shooting of Israeli-Canadian man”.

Relating to a murder that had taken place the previous day in Alexandria, the report opens as follows: [emphasis added]

“A criminal investigation has been launched by authorities in Egypt following the fatal shooting of an Israeli-Canadian businessman.

The incident happened in the northern coastal city of Alexandria on Tuesday.

The victim has been named by Israeli and Arabic media as Ziv Kipper – the head of an Egyptian food exporter.”

However, the BBC’s report then continues:

“A previously unknown group has said it was behind the shooting.

It has called itself the Vanguards of Liberation – the Martyr Mohammad Salah group – an apparent reference to an Egyptian police officer who was killed after shooting dead three Israeli soldiers last year.”

That link leads to one of several BBC reports from June 2023 concerning a terror attack perpetrated by an Egyptian policeman. As was noted here at the time, the report to which Armstrong chose to link promotes an inaccurate account of the incident which has not been corrected in the eleven months since its publication:

“That report by David Gritten again promotes the official Egyptian framing of events which, by the time it was published, was known not to be an accurate account of what happened.

“Egypt said after the incident that he crossed into Israel while chasing drug smugglers, leading to an exchange of fire with the Israeli soldiers.””

Armstrong’s report goes on:

“In a statement, the group described Mr Kipper as an Israeli agent and said his killing was in retaliation for what it called massacres in Gaza and Israel’s seizure of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, which also happened on Tuesday.”

As noted by Egyptian analyst Dalia Ziada, the group’s statement said that the murder was carried out as part of their “fight against the Zionists and the agents of the Israeli Mossad who are living on the Egyptian land.” Other analysts have noted the promotion – including by Iranian regime media – of a photograph and two versions of an apparent video of the attack.

Armstrong continues:

“A security source told Reuters they had no information about the existence of such a group and whether it had been involved in Tuesday’s attack.”

A report published by the Times of Israel on May 8^th casts some light on that second-hand statement from an Egyptian “security source”:

“Egyptian authorities were said Wednesday to have detained a man on suspicion of killing an Israeli-Canadian businessman residing in the country, amid conflicting reports over possible terror motivations in the attack a day earlier.

An Egyptian security source told Reuters that the case was being investigated as a criminal matter, rejecting any link to the victim’s Jewish background and denying knowledge of an apparent claim of responsibility from an anti-Israel group.”

BBC audiences would have been better placed to put Armstrong’s promotion of the Egyptian authorities’ framing of this latest incident into context had she not omitted all mention of the terror attack perpetrated by an Egyptian police officer which took place in the same city on October 8^th 2023 in which two Israeli tourists and an Egyptian tour guide were murdered, with a third Israeli later succumbing to wounds sustained during that attack.

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