On the afternoon of November 30th the BBC News website published a report which originally went under the headline “Five reported killed in Israeli strike in Gaza”.
Around five and a half hours later, that headline was amended. The report’s current title reads “Food charity pauses Gaza work after staff killed in Israeli strike” and it is now credited to Christy Cooney and Ruby Gleeson.
The report opens by telling readers that:
“The charity World Central Kitchen (WCK) has said it is pausing its operations in Gaza after a vehicle carrying its staff members was hit by an Israeli air strike.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the target of the strike had taken part in the 7 October attacks on Israel, and was currently employed by the WCK.
WCK said it was “heartbroken to share” that a vehicle carrying staff had been hit and it was seeking more details, though added it had “no knowledge” that anyone in the car had ties to the 7 October attacks.
Palestinian state-run news agency Wafa reported that five people were killed in the strike in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Saturday, with three of them WCK employees.”
Later in the report readers find further quotes from statements put out by the WCK and the IDF, with the BBC’s presentation of the latter reading as follows:
“In a statement addressing the WCK strike, the IDF said it had “struck a vehicle [carrying] a terrorist that took part in the murderous 7 October massacre”.
It said the man had taken part in an attack on the kibbutz of Nir Oz, though added that it was “not possible to link the terrorist to a specific abduction attempt”.
“The terrorist was monitored for a while by IDF intelligence and was struck following credible information regarding his real time location,” it said.
It said the strike was on a “civilian unmarked vehicle” whose movement had “not been coordinated for transporting aid”.
It went on to demand “clarifications and an urgent investigation” from WCK and the international community “regarding the hiring of workers who took part in… terrorist activity against Israel”.”
Interestingly, the BBC’s extensive paraphrasing of the Hebrew version of the IDF’s statement does not include the name provided in both that and the English language version.
Other sources spell that name differently – Ahed (or Ahad) Azmi Qdeih (or Qadih) – while his social media profile goes under the name Ahd A. Qudaih. As noted by Eitan Fishberger, his account includes the following:
Remarkably, the BBC’s report does not mention either the name of the target of the strike – which was in the public domain long before the latest version of this report appeared well over 24 hours after its initial publication – or the terrorist organisation Hamas.
It does however promote second hand claims concerning two additional incidents in Khan Younis, with no evidence to suggest that they had been independently verified by the BBC other than an account given to an unnamed member of the BBC’s staff by an unidentified doctor:
“Separately, British aid agency Save the Children said one of its staff members was also killed on Saturday afternoon in Khan Younis. […]
It is unclear whether he was killed in the same strike as the WCK employees.
Also on Saturday, medics said at least nine people were killed when an air strike hit a car near a group of people who had gathered to receive flour, according to Reuters.
A doctor who told the BBC he had treated people injured at a food distribution point said he would not have “appreciated the magnitude of injury and death” had he not seen it for himself.
“I operated on a man with shrapnel injury with no fewer than nine holes in his bowels. Others had much worse injuries.”
He said that even many doctors were now having to survive on food handed out by aid agencies.”
If the BBC is going to promote three paragraphs of quotes from “a doctor” to its worldwide audiences, it surely should identify that contributor or at least explain the editorial justification for failing to do so – in particular given its disturbing past record of amplification of specious claims made by inadequately presented politically motivated members of the medical profession.
Where was BBC Verify???????????????????
The BBC are Hamas
#defundthebbc