As we have noted in the past, one indicator of the fact that the BBC is trying to promote a particular story as widely as possible is its appearance on multiple platforms. Such is the case with a recent item produced by ‘BBC Eye Investigations’, presented on January 24th under the title “Targeted: Lebanon’s Deadliest Attack”.
In addition to appearing on BBC iPlayer (with 11-month availability) and on the BBC World Service YouTube channel, that ‘investigation’ by Nawal Al-Maghafi – “senior international investigations correspondent, BBC World Service” – was promoted on social media channels including Twitter and the BBC’s Instagram and TikTok accounts The story was also featured in the January 24th edition of the BBC’s ‘Global News Podcast’ and the January 24th edition of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’.
On the same day, the BBC News website published a written version of the story under the headline “IDF said bombed apartments were Hezbollah base – but most killed were civilians”. Along with Al-Maghafi, that article is credited to Scarlett Barter and Jake Tacchi, whose Linkedin profile also describes him as a “conflict researcher” for an organisation called ‘Action on Armed Violence’ which is headed by former BBC employee Dr Iain Overton. Among the AOAV reports produced by Tacchi is one from March 2022 on the topic of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, which manages to avoid the topic of Hizballah but, in a section headed “neighbouring states”, does tell readers that:
“In the South, we find Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) – historically areas of intense explosive violence. The Gaza Strip has borne the brunt of this, with AOAV recording 5,700 casualties in Gaza between 2011-2020 – of which 90% were civilians.” [emphasis added]
The main purpose of the BBC Eye investigation into a strike on a building in Ain el Delb on September 29th 2024 is to persuade audiences that it was not justified because, according to the BBC’s version of events, none of the Hizballah operatives targeted were senior commanders. The written version tells readers that:
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) says the building was targeted because it was a Hezbollah “terrorist command centre” and it “eliminated” a Hezbollah commander. It added that “the overwhelming majority” of those killed in the strike were “confirmed to be terror operatives”.
But a BBC Eye investigation verified the identity of 68 of the 73 people killed in the attack and uncovered evidence suggesting just six were linked to Hezbollah’s military wing. None of those we identified appeared to hold a senior rank.”
The BBC’s investigation provides no explanation for the fact that six men it describes as being “linked to Hezbollah’s military wing” were present in the same seventeen-apartment building on the same day. Instead, Al-Maghafi and her colleagues focus audience attentions on the semantics of Hizballah’s selectively and intermittently issued announcements:
“Hezbollah memorial photos for the six men use the label “Mujahid”, meaning “fighter”. Senior figures, by contrast, are referred to as “Qaid”, meaning “commander” – and we found no such labels used by the group to describe those killed.”
Readers eventually – in the report’s thirty-ninth paragraph – discover that the husband of one of the women interviewed by the BBC was a Hizballah operative:
“One of the Hezbollah fighters we identified was Batoul’s husband, Mohammed Fares. Batoul told us that her husband, like many other men in southern Lebanon, was a reservist for the group, though she added that he had never been paid by Hezbollah, held a formal rank, or participated in combat.”
An October 2024 report by the WSJ on that incident opens:
“For years, a helpful, middle-aged man lived in the basement apartment of a seven-story residential building on a hillside. Some neighbors in Ain el-Delb said they knew that he was connected to Hezbollah, the militant group. But they said they didn’t think he was important enough to be an Israeli target.”
The WSJ report goes on to quote “Hizballah members familiar with the situation” as saying that the man was “head of the group’s logistics committee in the southern city of Sidon: a role with civic and security responsibilities” and “they said his rank placed him in the low to middle level of the organisation”.
A report published by The Times in October 2024 told readers about a woman visiting the graves of some of those killed days earlier in the strike on the building in Ain el-Delb:
“She sat down heavily at the edge of the cemetery and screamed at the loss of her daughter and granddaughter: “My daughter, my daughter. My child.”
A Hezbollah functionary who had been showing us around the area went over to her and started to offer his condolences.
“You get out of here,” she snapped. “This is all your fault, all you people’s fault. Get out, I don’t want you here. I don’t want to talk to you.””
The BBC’s report promotes the myth of the Hizballah terrorist organisation having separate ‘wings’, despite the fact that it is designated as a whole by the British government.
“But alongside its large, well-armed military wing, Hezbollah is also an influential political party, holding seats in Lebanese parliament. In many parts of the country it is woven into the social fabric, providing a network of social services.”
The report also promotes the messaging of unidentified “UN experts” while failing to clarify that, as noted in the link provided, “they are not UN staff” or that that among them is the anti-Israel activist Francesca Albanese.
“UN experts have raised concerns about the proportionality and necessity of Israeli air strikes on residential buildings in densely populated areas in Lebanon.
This pattern of targeting entire buildings – resulting in significant civilian casualties – has been a recurring feature of Israel’s latest conflict with Hezbollah, which began when the group escalated rocket attacks in response to Israel’s war in Gaza.”
While the BBC’s written report does at least include that tepid passing reference to Hizballah’s unprovoked attacks on Israel since October 8th 2023, the filmed version does not contain any such context, with viewers told merely of “conflict between Israel and Hizballah” and “fighting”.
The written report goes on:
“Between October 2023 and November 2024, Lebanese authorities say more than 3,960 people were killed in Lebanon by Israeli forces, many of them civilians. Over the same time period, Israeli authorities say at least 47 civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from southern Lebanon. At least 80 Israeli soldiers were also killed fighting in southern Lebanon or as a result of rocket attacks on northern Israel.”
Readers are not told that the figures provided by the Lebanese ministry of health do not distinguish between civilians and combatants and the BBC does not provide any evidence to support its claim that “many” of those killed were civilians. As was reported in November 2024:
“The IDF has estimated that Israeli forces killed some 3,000 Hezbollah operatives. Around 100 members of other terror groups have also been reported killed in Lebanon.”
The 28-minute filmed version of the report promotes an almost one-minute-long monologue from a person presented as Hassan Taher who, viewers are told, “works in the local cemetery”. With no reaction whatsoever from Al-Maghafi beyond mute nods of the head, viewers hear of “children who died unjustly”, “women who died unjustly”, “a massacre against humanity”, “international law” and “human rights” – along with references to “a spiteful enemy” and “spiteful zionists” – translated in the sub-titles with a small Z.
That monologue does not appear by chance in the BBC’s ‘investigation’: it represents the main messaging that its producers intended to communicate. In order to promote the narrative that the strike was unjustified, the BBC’s senior international investigations correspondent sidelined any journalistic curiosity regarding the fact that six Hizballah operatives were in the building when it was struck and instead chose to focus audience attentions on the irrelevant claim that none of those present held “senior rank”. Indeed the synopsis to the version posted on YouTube states:
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC that the building was a Hezbollah command centre. We investigate this claim, finding evidence that six of the men killed that day were affiliated with the group, but no proof which suggests there were Hezbollah commanders in the building.”
As we see, the wilfully blind BBC Eye really did base an entire publicly-funded ‘investigation’ on the fanciful assumption that a location loses the title of ‘command centre’ if no-one of what journalists deem sufficiently high rank happens to be present at the time.
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The IPC (aka BBC) works feverishly and constantly to demonise Israel in every way they can dream up. No matter that Iran provided Hezbollah with a huge arsenal of missiles to force Israel “off the map” and that Lebanon allowed them to start a war against Israel by firing thousands of those missiles at civilian-populations, the IPC is concerned only with making a false report that some Hezbollah operatives eliminated by Israel were not of high enough rank. And we are forced to pay £169.50/year to receive this garbage.