Last month we documented the BBC News website’s promotion of a narrative concerning supposed attacks on UN forces in southern Lebanon, based on the talking points of the UN, UNIFIL and additional parties:
BBC NEWS FACILITATION OF UNIFIL TALKING POINTS
After that post appeared, the BBC News website published another report mentioning the October 13th incident during which an IDF tank trying to evacuate twenty-five wounded soldiers while under fire had reversed into the entrance to a UNIFIL post.
Despite the circumstances of that incident having been clarified two days previously, in his October 15th report – titled “Israel’s row with UN over Lebanon peacekeepers driven by long distrust” – Wyre Davies told BBC audiences that:
“In several incidents Israeli fire has hit clearly marked and unmistakable Unifil bases, and in one case Israeli tanks forced their way into a Unifil compound where they initially refused demands to leave.
Israel has offered explanations for those incidents but, again, says the way to avoid a repetition is for Unifil troops to withdraw from the area.
That has been met with a firm “No”.
A Unifil spokesperson accused the Israeli military of “deliberately” firing on its positions and 40 of the nations that contribute troops to Unifil said last week that they “strongly condemn recent attacks” on the peacekeepers.”
Promotion of that narrative has not been confined to written content. For example, listeners to the October 17th edition of the BBC World Service “youth news podcast” called ‘What in the World’ heard presenter William Lee Adams ask “why are Israeli forces firing at them?” [UNIFIL] while the BBC Beirut bureau’s Hugo Bachega told them that “UNIFIL is saying that some of those incidents are deliberate attacks by the Israeli army”.
The BBC News website does not have a tag for UNIFIL but it does have one titled “UN peacekeeping”. Notably, audiences do not find any content there relating to the October 29th incident in which eight Austrian UNIFIL troops were injured when a Hizballah rocket hit their base in Naqoura.
In a report published on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page on October 31st – “Seven killed in Israel in deadliest Hezbollah rocket strikes in months” – David Gritten told BBC audiences of another incident, without identifying the responsible party:
“Meanwhile, the head of the Irish military said a UN peacekeeping base in southern Lebanon that houses Irish troops was hit by a rocket fired towards Israel on Wednesday night.
The rocket landed inside an unoccupied area of Camp Shamrock, which is 7km (4 miles) from the Israeli border, causing minimal damage on the ground and no casualties, Lt Gen Sean Clancy said.
Irish premier Simon Harris said: “Thankfully everyone is safe but it is completely unacceptable that this happened. Peacekeepers are protected under international law and the onus is on all sides to ensure that protection.””
That link takes BBC audiences to a report by BBC Northern Ireland’s Eimear Flanagan headlined “Irish troops safe after rocket hits Lebanon camp” which likewise beats about the bush.
“Speaking in Athlone, Lt Gen Clancy said the device which struck Camp Shamrock on Wednesday was a “Katyusha rocket”.
“This was by an armed element, obviously. It was – our assessment – travelling from north to south into Israel,” he said.
“A lot of these are undirected, unguided and therefore unpredictable rockets.”
Lt Gen Sean Clancy explained such rockets “have been known to fall” but added that the Irish Defence Forces have not yet assessed if the rocket fell or was “taken down”.
Hezbollah is known to use Katyusha rockets and in August the group confirmed it had fired hundreds of Katyusha rockets and drones towards Israel.”
That link leads to a BBC News website live page dated August 24th. Apparently Flanagan was not able to find any more recent evidence of Hizballah’s use of that particular type of unguided rocket and had no interest in informing BBC audiences that the main supplier of those and other types of missiles is Iran.
Neither of course did Flanagan or Gritten bother to point out to BBC audiences that had UNIFIL actually fulfilled its mandate – which includes the task of “securing its borders and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or related materiel” – then such Iranian supplied weapons would not pose a threat either to UN forces or Israeli civilians.
As we see, while the BBC has in recent weeks produced a considerable amount of content amplifying the talking points of the UN, UNIFIL and others concerning supposed Israeli attacks on UNIFIL forces, its coverage of incidents involving Hizballah is decidedly more muted.
That, of course, does not come as much of a surprise given that the BBC has still not bothered to inform its audiences that what it widely reported on March 30th as a story about UN staff injured by “shelling” attributed to “an Israeli drone strike” was in fact a story about UN personnel injured by an explosive device planted by Hizballah.
CAMERA UK submitted a complaint pertaining to that issue on April 6th. One month later, on May 5th, we were informed that the BBC had run out of time to respond and so that disinformation remains online as what the BBC calls “permanent public record”.
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