On March 20th the BBC News website published a filmed report titled “BBC Verify: Assessing Israel’s renewed ground operation” which is credited to several members of BBC Verify staff.
The synopsis to that report promotes an unnecessarily qualified description of the targets of Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip along with unverified casualty figures supplied by the terrorist organisation which initiated the war: [emphasis added]
“Israel has sent more troops into Gaza after resuming airstrikes on what it calls “terror targets“.
The bombing has killed more than 500 people in the last 72 hours, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
BBC Verify’s Nick Beake has been looking at where the Israeli troops are now operating and the impact it’s having on Palestinians in the territory.”
Beake begins by telling viewers that: [emphasis in italics in the original]
Beake: “The Israeli military – the IDF – says its troops are now back along the Netzarim Corridor. This location is significant because it divides north and south Gaza. Israeli soldiers had withdrawn from there during the ceasefire. We’ve geolocated this footage the IDF posted, which shows troops have made their way at least halfway along the corridor. They say they’re expanding a security zone. In March last year, BBC Verify reported on the IDF’s completion of a road through the corridor. Since then, analysts have highlighted further fortifications along the route.”
Readers may recall that a year ago, BBC Verify – together with BBC Arabic – did indeed publish a report which promoted the notion that “the Israeli military will remain in Gaza indefinitely” and that the Netzarim Corridor road’s purpose “includes quite possibly preventing the 1.5 million displaced Palestinians in the south from returning to their homes in the north” – a speculation which of course did not transpire.
A NON-STORY FROM BBC ARABIC AND BBC VERIFY
BBC Verify’s Beake goes on to promote entirely unverified claims sourced from the Hamas terrorist organisation:
Beake: “Palestinians are also being killed in Israeli airstrikes again. […] At least 591 Gazans have been killed within the last three days according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Among them, it says, more than 200 children and more than 100 women.”
BBC Verify’s verification processes obviously do not include checking those figures or finding out how many of those women and children were killed because terror operatives hide among the civilian population.
For example, when the commander of Hamas’ Shujayya Battalion, Jamil Al-Wadiya, was eliminated on March 18th, his three children were also reportedly killed, due to Hamas’ policy of hiding in civilian areas. Another commander in that same battalion, Ahmed Shamali, was eliminated on the same day, apparently together with his wife and six children.
BBC Verify, however, has nothing to tell BBC audiences about how the Hamas policy of using human shields leads to the deaths of women and children and instead prefers to uncritically quote and promote data provided by that same terrorist organisation.
Beake later goes on to state:
Beake: “But Hamas has now started to retaliate and has fired rockets towards Israel for the first time since January, back when the ceasefire was agreed.”
Beake has nothing more to tell viewers about that incident in which three rockets were launched towards the Tel Aviv area, with one intercepted and two striking open areas. As for Beake’s claim that this was “the first time since January” that rockets were fired “towards Israel”, that is not entirely accurate.
As documented by the ISA and reported by the ITIC, during February “[o]n three occasions rockets were fired which fell inside the Gaza Strip”.
On February 13th a rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip but fell short, killing a 14-year-old boy in Nuseirat. A BBC report published at the time amplified unverified Hamas claims:
“Meanwhile the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) published video of what it said was a rocket fired at Israel from Gaza on Thursday. It said the rocket failed and landed inside Gaza. A source in the Hamas-run police said the rocket was an unexploded Israeli ordinance that had fired into the air while it was being moved away, Reuters news agency reported.”
Rockets were also fired on February 24th and February 26th, in both cases falling short and landing inside the Gaza Strip.
So while three rockets launched from the Gaza Strip after the ceasefire came into effect on January 19th failed to cross into Israeli territory, Beake’s claim that the March 20th attack was “the first time since January” that missiles have been fired “towards Israel” clearly does not tell BBC audiences the whole story.
Yet again we see that BBC Verify has apparently not yet grasped that blindly regurgitating the claims of a terrorist organisation does not count as verification and fact checking and does not “address the growing threat of disinformation“.
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BBC REPORTS FAIL TO TELL ALL ABOUT TARGETS OF GAZA AIRSTRIKES
BBC Verify was intentionally and originally set up to cover up the antisemitism from its own reporters. It is there to provide authenticity in the eyes of the average reader/listener, to lies continually spewed out by the bunch of racist reporters they knowingly employ. #defundthebbc
The disgusting UK mouthpiece for Hamas is…………………. BBCNews.