Crucial omissions in BBC reporting on story involving a UK charity

On March 15^th the BBC News website published a report titled “Aid workers killed in Israeli air strike in Gaza, charity tells BBC” which is credited to Emir Nader and Malu Cursino.

In the four-and-a-half hours following its initial publication, that report was amended three times. The version currently appearing on the BBC News website opens as follows:

“A team of charity workers has been killed in Israeli strikes in northern Gaza, the UK-registered Al Khair Foundation has told the BBC.

The charity said eight people – including its volunteers and independent journalists documenting their activities – were killed when their vehicles were targeted on Saturday in what Hamas described as a “blatant violation” of the ceasefire agreement with Israel.

The Israeli military has said it had struck “two terrorists who were identified operating a drone that posed a threat to Israeli troops”, adding that it then targeted “additional terrorists” who arrived at the scene.

The charity rejects the allegation that members of its team were terrorists.”

The report continues with uncritical promotion of a version of events provided by the charity concerned:

“Qasim Rashid Ahmad, founder and chairman of the charity, told the BBC the team was in the area to set up tents and document it for the charity’s own promotion efforts.

He said that the cameramen came back to the car and were hit, while its team members who rushed to the scene were then struck by an Israeli drone which had followed them when they went to the charity’s second car.”

Notably, Nader and Cursino had nothing whatsoever to tell their readers about that UK registered charity’s alleged links to terrorist organisations. As reported by the Times of Israel:

“The IDF has said in the past that the Al-Khair Foundation, a Muslim nonprofit based in Britain and Turkey, is an aid group that transfers funds to terror groups in Gaza “under the guise of humanitarian activity” and that the organization has employed at least one senior Hamas official.”

That Hamas platoon commander – who, as acknowledged by Al Khair Foundation, also worked for the charity – was killed in a strike in Khan Younis in July 2024.

Following a quote from a statement from the IDF, Nader and Cursino chose to amplify the long employed false claim that Israel targets Palestinian journalists (as has been repeatedly seen in BBC content) but failed to inform readers that the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has been involved in lawfare against Israel.

“But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had targeted people operating a drone who posed a threat to Israeli troops in Beit Lahia, adding: “Later, a number of additional terrorists collected the drone operating equipment and entered a vehicle. The IDF struck the terrorists.”

Video editor Bilal Abu Matar and cameramen Mahmoud Al-Sarraj, Bilal Aqila and Mahmoud Asleem were all named as having been killed in the strike, according to the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.

The organisation accused Israel of carrying out “systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists, who risk their lives to report the truth and expose Israeli crimes to the world”.”

The BBC’s report continues with the promotion of claims from the Hamas terrorist organisation:

“Several others were injured in the strike, and rushed to the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

A spokesman for the group, Hazem Qassem, accused Israel of having “committed a horrific massacre in the northern Gaza Strip”.”

Early on the morning of March 16^th, the IDF provided further details concerning that strike in Beit Lahiya.

Three of the four people named by the BBC – and described as journalists based on the PSJ’s claims – were shown to have been Hamas operatives, along with two others and one PIJ operative: [emphasis added]

“They are named by the IDF as: Mustafa Mohammed Shaaban Hamed, a Hamas terrorist who invaded Israel on October 7, 2023; Mahmoud Yahya Rashdi as-Saraj [al-Sarraj], a member of Hamas’s engineering forces; Bilal Mahmood Fuad Abu Matar, a Hamas operative operating under the guise of a photographer; Mahmoud Imad Hassan Isleem [Asleem], a member of Hamas’s Zeitoun Battalion, operating under the guise of a journalist; Suheib Bassem Khaled Najar, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative who was released in the recent hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas; and Mohammed Alaa Suhbi al-Jafir, a Hamas operative.”

The BBC’s report has not been updated to include that information concerning the “aid workers” mentioned in its headline and assorted promotions.

Clearly this BBC report by Emir Nader and Malu Cursino comes nowhere near to providing BBC audiences – including the corporation’s funding public in the UK – with the full range of information needed to understand this story involving a UK registered charity.

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