On the morning of April 24th the BBC News website published a report by Paul Adams which was originally titled “Hamas’ iron grip on Gaza is slowly slipping as residents protest” and currently goes under the headline “Anti-Hamas protests on rise in Gaza as group’s iron grip slips”.
Adams’ article marks the first mention in BBC News website reporting of the kidnapping and execution of a Gazan protester nearly a month earlier:
“At the end of March, 22-year old Oday al-Rubai was abducted by armed gunmen from a refugee shelter in Gaza City.
Hours later, his body was found covered in horrific wounds.
The Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights said Oday had been tortured, calling his death “a grave violation of the right to life and an extrajudicial killing”.”
Adams’ report includes interviews with protesters, one of whom is introduced as follows:
“”The world is deceived by the situation in the Gaza Strip,” says Moumen al-Natour, a Gaza lawyer and former organiser of the 2019 anti-Hamas “We Want to Live” movement.”
Interestingly, four earlier versions of Adams’ report presented that interviewee differently: [emphasis added]
“”The world is deceived by the situation in the Gaza Strip,” says Moumen al-Natour, a Gaza lawyer and former political prisoner who’s long been a vocal critic of Hamas.”
In December 2023 an American media outlet reported that “The Hamas regime has imprisoned Al-Natour twenty times, including incarceration for “expressing my opinion and trying to organize additional protests” but for reasons unknown, the BBC decided to remove the phrase “former political prisoner” some eleven-and-a-half hours after the article’s original publication.
A particularly notable aspect of Adams’ report is its rare portrayal of Hamas and other terrorist organisations’ policy of using the civilian population of the Gaza Strip as human shields.
“Beit Lahiya, at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, has seen some of the most vociferous opposition.
In a series of voice notes, an eyewitness – who asked not to be named – described several recent incidents in which local residents prevented Hamas fighters from carrying out military actions from inside their community.
On 13 April, he said, Hamas gunmen tried to force their way into the house of an elderly man, Jamal al-Maznan.
“They wanted to launch rockets and pipes [a derogatory term used for some of Hamas’ home-made projectiles] from inside his house,” the eyewitness told us.
“But he refused.”
The incident soon escalated, with relatives and neighbours all coming to al-Maznan’s defence. The gunmen opened fire, injuring several people, but eventually were driven out.”
And:
“Elsewhere in Gaza, protesters have told militants to stay away from hospitals and schools, to avoid situations in which civilians are caught up in Israeli air strikes.
But such defiance is still risky. In Gaza City, Hamas shot one such protester dead.”
The shooting at a former school sheltering displaced persons to which Adams refers took place over a week before the publication of his article but was not reported by the BBC at the time. Likewise, a recent story concerning a member of staff at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, who received threats from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group after publicly demanding that its operatives leave the facility, was not considered newsworthy by the BBC.
As we see, Paul Adams is fully aware of the long-known fact that terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip exploit the presence of civilians at facilities including hospitals and former schools for military purposes. The question therefore arising is why his colleagues repeatedly publish uncritical promotions of Hamas denials without providing the same context.
For example, a report credited to David Gritten and Sebastian Usher was updated just hours before the appearance of Adams’ article to include the following: [emphasis added]
“The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it struck “a gathering of terrorists operating within a Hamas and [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad command and control centre” in the area of the school.
It accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields – an allegation that the group has repeatedly denied.”
If Paul Adams can report that “civilians are caught up in Israeli air strikes” because terrorist operatives exploit hospitals and schools, then his colleagues should obviously also be capable of providing BBC audiences with the same essential context in their coverage of such incidents.
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It will be surprising if Paul Adams is still working for the Hamas Mouthpiece (aka BBC) after writing something that is the truth