On June 19th the BBC News website published a report by David Gritten headlined ‘Israeli strikes on Gaza may have violated laws of war – UN report’ which opens by telling readers that: [emphasis added]
“The UN Human Rights Office says Israeli air strikes in Gaza may have systematically violated the laws of war requiring that civilians and civilian infrastructure be protected.
It is the conclusion of a report on what it calls six “emblematic attacks” on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market between 9 October and 2 December last year.
The UN says it has verified that at least 218 people were killed in the incidents and that civilian objects were destroyed.”
Readers of Gritten’s article are provided with a link to the UN report – which, notably, does not reveal the name of the person/persons who wrote it and which includes footnotes (some with dead links) citing NGOs including Oxfam, media outlets including Ha’aretz, the Guardian and 972 Magazine and the Telegram channel of the ministry of health run by the terrorist organisation which started the current war.
Gritten provides his readers with a list of the six strikes before going on to quote extensively from the report.
By way of ‘balance’, readers are told that:
“Israel’s mission in Geneva rejected the UN’s findings as “factually, legally, and methodologically flawed”.
It insisted that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was operating in Gaza in accordance with international law and accused Hamas of unlawfully embedding itself among civilians.”
Linking to a Tweet from that mission, Gritten later tells his readers that:
“Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva condemned the report, saying it “suffers from hindsight and methodological biases which cast a shadow on the credibility of its legal assessment”.
“The only objective of this thematic report is to lambast and single-out Israel, while further shielding Hamas terrorists in Gaza,” it added.
It also asserted that the conclusions were based on public information and data published by Hamas, overlooked operational considerations, and did not address Hamas’s tactics.
“Hamas systematically and unlawfully embeds its military assets within populated areas, and carries out its military activities amongst, behind, and under its own civilians in a deliberate and strategic attempt to maximize civilian harm,” it said. “It also cynically manipulates the statistics surrounding casualties.”
It added: “Israel is committed to its obligations under national and international law, and in particular, the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions.””
While Gritten quotes from that Tweet, he does not tell readers that it includes a link to ‘Israel’s Initial Response to OHCHR Background Note’ which was published on the same day as UN’s report.
Despite having spent 612 words describing the allegations made in the report and promoting comment from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, Gritten did not find fit to inform BBC audiences of the details of Israel’s response beyond the 183 words (including repetitions) above.
Given that the BBC has been uncritically quoting and promoting Hamas-provided casualty figures for almost nine months – including in this article – its audiences may have found the following part of Israel’s response particularly informative.
“A prominent example that reveals the bias nature of the OHCHR note is the citing of Hamas fatality figures.
Every civilian death is a tragedy, and the State of Israel does not detract from the civilian suffering and hardship following Hamas’s instigation of this war. However, the attempt to use unsubstantiated fatality figures and statistical manipulation on numbers in order to indicate unlawful conduct under international law is cynical and unethical.
As with other conflicts in recent years, civilian casualty data is notoriously difficult to obtain and ascertain in the midst of hostilities. This is all the more so in the context of hostilities taking place in complex circumstances in the urban theatre, against an adversary that controls the territory, the relevant authorities and agencies, and which has a documented practice of false reporting, including with regard to casualties. An IDF intelligence analysis of the verifiable list of named casualties published by Hamas Ministry of Health on April 30 has found the following:
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- The named list does not distinguish between civilians and militants.
- Some militants are prescribed as female.
- The list includes minors who are identified militants.
- The list includes people whose circumstances of death are by Hamas and other organized armed groups conduct, such as misfires or IED’s placed in populates areas.
- The list includes people whose circumstances of death are unrelated to the war.
- The list has other incongruities, such as false or consecutive ID numbers.
The UN itself has recently amended the reported numbers, acknowledging that over 10,000 of the casualties claimed by Hamas (almost a third of all casualties claimed by Hamas) are not based on verifiable information, and ceasing to repeat the baseless claim that 70% of the casualties are women and children. This shift strengthens the Israeli position from the early stages of the war regarding the inability to properly assess fatality figures in this stage of the war.”
The document goes on to provide examples of named male casualties from Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organisations, four of whom were listed by the Hamas Ministry of Health as female.
The Israeli response also notes that:
“Since facts are the basis of any legal analysis, any ambiguity or incomplete information regarding the targets and circumstances compromise the ability to judge the legality of an attack. Therefore, the chosen methodology by which OHCHR analyzes these strikes, which includes mainly relying on alleged results and media coverage, leads to an inaccurate understanding of which targets were struck, the military importance given to each target, and the operational constraints. It is clear that OHCHR’s note suffers from these flaws, leading to a misapplication and unjust accusations of violations.”
And:
“It also appears that the authors of the background note lack operational expertise to fully grasp the rationale of military operations and the need for specific munitions in an operational reality.”
Notably, Gritten’s unbalanced article is one of four items of content pertaining to UN reports to have been published on the BBC News website over a period of less than two weeks with the others being:
June 7th: ‘Israel military on UN failing to protect children list’. Discussed here
June 12th: ‘Israel, Hamas accused of war crimes in new UN report’. Discussed here
June 12th: ‘Israel and Hamas placed on UN list for violating children’s rights’
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Iran, in accordance with their religion, will instruct Hamas to spew out literally anything that it thinks may further their aims to destroy the State of Israel and kill Jews. There is absolutely no depth to which they will not sink – and the IPC (aka BBC) follows them just like another puppet .