As is so often the case at the Guardian, a recent report vilifying Israel (“Child deaths surge amid ‘Gazafication’ of West Bank, report says”, March 10) was based almost entirely on a report by an anti-Israel NGO. However, not only did the journalists, Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum, fail to critically examine the report by B’tselem, but actually misrepresented one of the NGO’s accusations.
Here’s the relevant paragraph from the Guardian piece:
Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, the beginning of the Gaza war triggered by Hamas’s attack on southern Israel, have killed more Palestinians than during the violence of the second intifada of the 2000s…according to data collected by B’tselem over more than two decades.
Yet, if you look at the section of the B’tselem report in question, it’s clear that this is not what they’re alleging.
From 7 October 2023 to 8 March 2025, B’Tselem documented 69 airstrikes, which killed 261 people, including at least 41 minors. In stark contrast, airstrikes in the West Bank killed 14 people in the preceding 18 years, from 2005 to 7 October 2023.
Given that the 2nd intifada had ended by 2005, B’tselem is clearly alleging that more Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank in the seventeen months since Oct. 7, 2023 than during the 18 year period AFTER the intifada. Also, the fact that there were hardly any airstrikes on terror targets in the West Bank during that 18 year period between the 2005 and Oct. 7, 2023 shows how meaningless even that B’tselem claim is.
Further, if the journalists wanted to make an accurate and more morally relevant 2nd Intifada comparison, they could have noted that more Israelis were murdered by Palestinian terrorists on one single day in Oct., 2023, than during the entire bloody intifada.
We complained to editors, asking that the article be corrected, to accurately reflect B’tselem’s claim.
Also of note: we noticed that the article by Graham-Harrison and Kierszenbaum used the following language in describing terror groups operating in Judea and Samaria (“West Bank”):
Israel says its operations target militant Palestinian groups. The refugee camps are historically home to fighters who consider themselves armed resistance.
Why is this noteworthy? Because, this represents an improvement over language used by the same journalists in a Feb. 23 article on the IDF’s operation in these cities – which we complained to editors about.
Here’s the relevant sentence from that Feb. article:
Today the camps resemble urban slums, and have long functioned as bastions of armed resistance to the occupation.
In our complaint, we expressed our deep dismay over the characterisation, in the journalist’s own voice, of deadly attacks by terror groups – some of whom are proscribed by the British government – as “armed resistance to the occupation“, mirroring the rhetoric of terror groups and their supporters. We also complained about a separate article published a day earlier, by their Jerusalem corresponded Bethan McKernan, which used the same language
Though the Readers’ Editor’s office didn’t uphold our complaint about the two articles, the new formulation, making it clear that it’s the “fighters” themselves who “consider themselves armed resistance“, suggests that a decision was made at the outlet to avoid using language which legitimises the violence of Palestinian extremists.
