On the evening of September 11th the BBC News website published a report about an airstrike on a Hamas command centre located in an UNRWA building in Nuseirat which was formerly used as a school.
In accordance with what is now standard BBC practice, that report – originally headlined “Israeli strike on Gaza school kills at least 14 – health officials” – relied on unverified claims sourced from the Hamas-run Gaza civil defense.
“At least 14 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a UN-run school housing displaced families in the central Gaza Strip, hospital officials and the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency say.
The Israeli military said it carried out a “precise strike on terrorists” planning attacks from inside al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat refugee camp, adding that it took measures to mitigate harm to civilians.
The Civil Defence said several women and children were killed, including the daughter of one of its rescue workers.”
That initial version of the report continued with uncritical promotion of Hamas denials concerning its amply documented use of human shields: [emphasis added]
“The UN condemned the strike, which it said was the fifth on the same school since the start of the war 11 months ago.
In July, 16 people were reportedly killed in strike which the Israeli military said targeted several structures at the school used by Hamas fighters.
Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist group by Israel, the UK and other countries – has denied using schools and other civilian sites for military purposes.”
The BBC report to which that link leads was previously discussed here:
BBC NEWS FRAMING OF A STRIKE ON TERRORISTS USING HUMAN SHIELDS
The BBC’s unhelpful ‘he said – she said’ reporting also included amplification of messaging from another Hamas-run body.
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that aircraft had “conducted a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control centre” embedded inside al-Jaouni school. […]
“This is a further example of the Hamas terrorist organisation’s systematic abuse of civilian infrastructure in violation of international law.”
Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said about 5,000 people were sheltering at the school at the time of the strike and accused Israel of a “brutal massacre”.
There was no immediate comment from the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), which ran al-Jaouni school before the war.
The UN said it condemned “all air strikes that target civilians and those that also target UN facilities”.
“Our policy is clear – UN premises should never be targeted, nor should UN premises be used by any groups or any force from which to launch military activities,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.”
The BBC refrained from informing its audiences that civilian facilities – including “UN premises” – being used for military purposes become a legitimate target.
Later the same evening that report’s headline was changed to “UN says Israeli strike killed six of its Gaza staff”.
“The UN agency for Palestinian refugees says six of its employees have been killed in an Israeli air strike on one of the schools it runs in central Gaza.
Unrwa said it was “the highest death toll among our staff in a single incident” since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in October. […]
The agency insisted that “schools and other civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times”, adding: “They are not a target.”
“We call on all parties to the conflict to never use schools or the areas around them for military or fighting purposes.”
Readers were later told that:
“Israel has previously accused Unrwa of supporting Hamas.
The agency has denied this, but the UN said in August that it had fired nine of Unrwa’s 13,000 staff in Gaza after investigators found evidence that they might have been involved in the 7 October attack. Another 10 staff were cleared because of insufficient evidence.
Israel also alleged that hundreds of Unrwa staff were members of terrorist groups, but a UN review published in April found Israel had not provided evidence for its claims.”
The August 5th BBC report to which that link leads does not provide audiences with a link to the statement put out by the UN following the conclusion of an investigation by the UN Office of Oversight Services (OIOS), the results of which were not made public.
The “UN review published in April” to which this version of the BBC’s report refers is the Colonna Report which, contrary to the claim in this and previous BBC content, did not purport to investigate either the Israeli allegations that UNRWA Gaza staff members participated in the October 7 atrocities, or the subsequent Israeli allegations that significant numbers of the Gaza staff belong to Hamas and that nearly half have a close relative who is a Hamas member.
The following morning the headline of that report was again amended and the version currently appearing on the BBC News website is credited to David Gritten and titled “UN says Israeli strike on Gaza school killed six of its staff”.
That version of the report relates to a statement put out by the IDF on September 12th naming nine Hamas operatives killed in the strike on the al Jaouni school in Nuseirat, three of whom were also UNRWA employees.
As reported by the Times of Israel and others, the IDF had already approached UNRWA on that topic:
‘The military says that “upon receiving the allegation that local Palestinian workers of the UNRWA agency were killed in the strike, the IDF contacted the agency yesterday for details and names in order to examine the allegation in-depth and as of this writing it has not yet been answered despite repeated requests.”’
The fifth paragraph of the current version of the BBC’s report however tells readers that:
“Unrwa said the Israeli military had not requested a list of the staff who were killed, and that the names published by the military had not been previously flagged to the agency by Israeli authorities.”
Much later in the report, readers discover that the source of that claim is an UNRWA staffer who is frequently platformed by the BBC.
“On Thursday afternoon, the IDF put out a statement saying that it had repeatedly requested from Unrwa the names of the employees who were killed in the strike, but that it had received “no answers”.
It then named nine men who it alleged were “Hamas terrorists… confirmed to have been eliminated in the strike”.
The IDF said all nine were members of Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, and that three of them were “simultaneously an Unrwa employee”.
Three names featured on a list of the six Unrwa workers which was earlier released by the UN. […]
Unrwa’s communications director, Juliette Touma, said Israeli authorities had not requested a list of staff killed from the agency.
“The names that appear on today’s statement from the Israeli Army have not been flagged to us before by the Israeli authorities in previous occasions prior to today,” she said.
“Unrwa shares the lists of all its staff with the host governments and in the context of the West Bank and Gaza also with the state of Israel as the occupying power.”
Ms Touma also stressed that Unrwa had repeatedly called on the warring parties to never use civilian facilities for military purposes.
“Now whether this particular school or other have been used for that very purpose, Unrwa is not in a position to determine,” she added. “This is precisely why we have repeatedly called for independent investigations to look into these very serious claims.””
The claim that UNRWA “is not in a position to determine” whether or not its facilities have been exploited by terrorist organisations for military purposes was likewise promoted in interviews with the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini and the Senior Deputy Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza, Sam Rose on a variety of BBC platforms on September 12th and 13th.
Philippe Lazzarini appeared on the September 13th edition of ‘Hardtalk’, aired on BBC World Service radio and the BBC News Channel.
Sackur: “…are you categorically rejecting the Israeli statement that Hamas was using it [al Jaouni school] as a command-and-control centre?”
Lazzarini: “I have absolutely no information. This is an allegation coming from the Israeli. I have absolutely no way to verify this information.”
Despite the BBC’s decision to provide UNRWA staff members with multiple platforms and particularly in light of Lazzarini’s claim that Israeli allegations concerning UNRWA staff operating as terrorists are part of a “political” attempt to “eliminate and to dismantle” UNRWA – allegations which were repromoted on the BBC World Service radio programme ‘Newsday’ (from 07:10 here) and on social media – BBC audiences were not informed in any of those items that the Colonna report, published only five moths ago, specifically addressed the issue of the “neutrality of installations” (p25): [emphasis added]
“In line with UNRWA’s Neutrality Framework, the agency is responsible for ensuring the neutrality of these installations, including preventing misuse for political or military objectives. […]
UNRWA has due diligence mechanisms in place to prevent neutrality breaches in its installations, and it has established protocols to respond to breaches. However, security and capacity challenges may hamper their due implementation.
UNRWA delivers on its obligations in two ways, which will be further discussed below. Firstly, it regularly inspects and assesses the compliance of premises with the principle of neutrality. Secondly, it signals any critical breaches and reports on them to host States and donors.”
Clearly those “due diligence mechanisms” are not fit for purpose but none of the BBC journalists who quoted or interviewed UNRWA staffers bothered to press that point, even though the corporation’s funding public are also those funding the British government’s recent decision to provide UNRWA with £21 million.
During that ‘Hardtalk’ interview, Sackur also asked Lazzarini about UNRWA’s operations in Judea & Samaria (from 19:16). Not long after that programme went on air, UNRWA put out a claim concerning another member of its staff who it said had been killed by the IDF in al Far’a, near Tubas, on September 12th.
The IDF later clarified that allegation:
“IDF spokesperson Nadav Shoshani said that during an operation in Fara’a, a suspect was identified hurling explosive devices that posed a threat to the forces operating in the area. IDF troops opened fire toward him to remove said threat, and he was killed.
“The terrorist was subsequently identified and it was discovered he is also an UNRWA employee named Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad. It should be noted that after receiving his details, it was found that the terrorist was known to Israeli security forces and he had been complicit in additional terrorist activities,” Shoshani said.
“This is yet another example of an UNRWA employee taking active part in terrorist activities against Israel, as has been proven in several other cases in the past, including employees who participated in the October 7 massacre,” he said.
Mourners on Friday carried Jawwad’s body through the streets of Fara’a, with his blue UN vest resting atop the Palestinian flag that covered him.”
Notably, despite the editorial decision to extensively promote UNRWA allegations and talking points online, on domestic and worldwide radio and on television between September 11th and September 13th, the BBC News website has to date not covered that story about yet another UNRWA employee engaging in terrorism.
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