On May 20th the BBC News website published a filmed report titled “BBC Verify examines Israeli strikes as minimal aid enters Gaza” on its ‘Middle East’ page.
As can be seen in its synopsis, that report was presented by Jake Horton, with “[v]erification by Paul Brown, Benedict Garman and Sherie Ryder”.
Horton begins by telling viewers that:
Horton: “Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from getting into Gaza since early March, saying this would put pressure on Hamas to release hostages. Israel has also said they’re stealing aid, which Hamas denies.”
Notably, Horton has nothing at all to tell BBC audiences about the augmented amounts of humanitarian aid – mostly food – which entered the Gaza Strip in 25,200 trucks between January 19th and March 2nd 2025.
Neither do Horton’s amplification of Hamas denials of aid theft come as a surprise, seeing as the BBC has assiduously avoided conducting any serious journalism on that issue since late 2023, all the while quoting and promoting Hamas denials.
Horton goes on to make a statement which shows that despite three members of BBC Verify staff having worked on this report, verification was not conducted.
Horton: “According to the UN, before the war about 500 trucks a day crossed into the Strip. On Monday, five aid trucks reportedly entered. The UN said this was a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed, warning of widespread starvation.” [emphasis added]
As was noted here well over a year ago when the BBC published a backgrounder promoting a similar narrative of imminent starvation:
“As clarified by COGAT (and supported by UN data) on average, only 70 of the 500 trucks a day which entered the Gaza Strip before October 7th were carrying food.”
BBC BACKGROUNDER MISLEADS ON HUMANITARIAN AID TO GAZA STRIP
Of course Paul Brown, Benedict Garman and Sherie Ryder are by no means the only BBC employees who apparently hold the belief that there is no need to fact check claims made by the UN. Additional examples of that misinformation suggesting that before the war 500 food trucks entered the Gaza Strip daily which have appeared in recent days include the following:
“UN says 90 lorry loads of aid now in Gaza after three-day delay at crossing”, David Gritten, 22/5/25:
“Israeli authorities said they allowed an additional 100 lorry loads through Kerem Shalom on Wednesday. However, the UN said it was “nowhere near enough to meet the vast needs in Gaza”.
About 500 lorries entered the territory on average every day before the war, the UN has said.
Humanitarian organisations have warned of acute levels of hunger among the 2.1 million population, amid significant shortages of basic foods and skyrocketing prices.”
Live page, 23/5/25:
In fact, the BBC has been promoting that misinformation since October 2023 – for example:
“The World Food Programme’s Abeer Etefa said that the situation in the territory was becoming “very difficult”.
“Food and water supplies are running out. The bakeries – many of them have stopped functioning.”
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UN relief agency UNRWA, told the BBC that about 500 trucks a day had been entering Gaza before the war started. Some 1.2 million people living in the territory already relied on food aid from UNRWA before 7 October.” [source, 19/10/2023]
“On Saturday, 20 aid trucks crossed from Egypt for the first time in two weeks.
But campaigners said the aid that flowed through the Rafah crossing represented a “drop in the ocean” of what was needed.
Prior to the war, about 500 aid trucks a day were entering Gaza, said a spokesman from ActionAid Palestine.” [source, 22/10/2023]
Moreover, BBC Verify previously promoted that misinformation in a January 2025 report titled “How 15 months of war has devastated Gaza”:
While it is undoubtedly convenient for the UN and related agencies to throw around that “500 trucks a day” claim without clarifying that only around 70 of them were carrying food, that does not excuse the BBC’s serial repromotion of that claim in its long-standing efforts to promote a famine narrative, especially by a department supposedly dedicated to fact checking and “anti-disinformation”.
Horton goes on to tell BBC audiences that:
Horton: “Last week the Hamas-run health ministry reported 57 children had died from the effects of malnutrition since early March.”
Horton does not tell viewers whether or not – and if so, how – BBC Verify confirmed that claim before repeating it. “Last week” would fall between the dates May 11th and May 17th inclusive. On May 13th, the World Health Organisation reported that same Hamas sourced claim:
“Since the aid blockade began on 2 March, 57 children have reportedly died from the effects of malnutrition, according to the Ministry of Health.”
However, well over a week earlier assorted Palestinian outlets (and others) were reporting that same figure as relating to the time period since October 7th 2023 and not only to children and citing a different source – for example:
“The Government Media Office in the Gaza Strip said in a statement that the number of victims of starvation and severe malnutrition has risen to 57 since the start of the war, the vast majority of whom are children, but also include the sick and elderly.” [source]
“The Government Media Office (GMO) in Gaza has revealed that the number of deaths in the Strip due to the starvation policy since the start of the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, has risen to 57, the vast majority of whom are children, including the sick and the elderly.” [source]
On May 21st, CNN reported that: “The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that at least 57 children have died from the effects of malnutrition since the start of the war” [emphasis added] and on May 5th the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health put out a Facebook post which states that “[t]he number of child deaths due to malnutrition and health complications has risen to 57 children” but does not say that it relates to the time period since early March.
Clearly there is confusion concerning the figure quoted and promoted by BBC Verify but Horton failed to inform his viewers whether – or how – his colleagues had verified it or not, to what time period it actually relates or whether the deceased had any relevant underlying medical conditions.
As we see, in the first 36 seconds of this 1:45 minute-long report, BBC Verify advanced the narrative of famine in the Gaza Strip by erasing relevant context concerning previously augmented supplies of food aid, sidelining the issue of Hamas theft of supplies, promoting misinformation concerning the amount of food supplies prior to the war and quoting unclear fatality figures provided by the same terrorist organisation that started it, without any evidence of fact-checking having taken place.
High time that Hamas and Iran organised and paid for unlimited number of truckloads of food and medicines to enter Gaza – or is their begging bowl only for armaments.
Notice the Stazi BBC do not mention a word of Hamas warning Gazans NOT to accept food from the joint American/ Israeli food from that began operating today #defundthebbc