Early on the morning of June 1^st the BBC News website published a report headlined “At least 15 killed in Israeli fire near Gaza aid centre, say medics”.

Credited to two BBC journalists not located in the Gaza Strip – Rushdi Abualouf in Cairo and Anna Lamche in London – that report related to an incident which had allegedly taken place several hours earlier in Rafah and was primarily based on an account from a “local journalist”.

“At least 15 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli tank shelling and gunfire near an aid distribution centre in Rafah in southern Gaza, according to medics and local residents.

Mohammed Ghareeb, a local journalist in Rafah, told the BBC that thousands of Palestinians had gathered near a US-funded humanitarian aid distribution centre when Israeli tanks approached and opened fire on the crowd. […]

Mr Ghareeb said the crowd of Palestinians had gathered near Al-Alam roundabout around 04:30 local time (02:30 BST), close to the aid centre run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, shortly before Israeli tanks appeared and opened fire.

“The dead and wounded lay on the ground for a long time,” Mr Ghareeb said.

“Rescue crews could not access the area, which is under Israeli control. This forced residents to use donkey carts to transport victims to the field hospital.””

Readers were not told anything about that journalist’s record or the affiliations of the channel employing him. The report went on to quote “[a] doctor at the Red Cross field hospital” which several hours earlier had put out a statement that did not clarify the location of the incident as well as “Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal” but failed to inform readers that Hamas runs that organisation.

A “local journalist” was also quoted in the first entry concerning that alleged incident on a BBC News website live page.

A later entry named the same “local journalist” quoted in Abualouf and Lamche’s report:

As the day went on, Abualouf and Lamche’s report was updated numerous times, with the number of alleged casualties in its headline fluctuating from fifteen to twenty-six to thirty-one and then down to twenty-one and the cited source of those figures changing three times from “medics” to “Hamas” and then “the Red Cross”. Its fourth version told BBC audiences that:

“The Israel Defence Forces said it was “currently unaware of injuries caused by IDF fire within the Humanitarian Aid distribution site. The matter is still under review.””

In other words, the BBC chose to promote unsubstantiated claims before it had received any information from either the IDF or the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Some seven and a half hours after the report’s initial appearance, the BBC began quoting a British surgeon “working at Nasser hospital”.

“Victoria Rose, a British surgeon who has been working at Nasser Hospital, recorded a video mid-morning in which she motions to the beds with patients behind her and says “all the bays are full and they’re all gunshot wounds”.”

The BBC did not clarify to its audiences how that surgeon could state unequivocally that the incident had taken place “at the GHF aid distribution centre near Rafah” when she herself was located miles away in Khan Younis.

The same version of Abualouf and Lamche’s report included the following:

“The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which runs the centre, said the reports were “false” and spread by Hamas. It said it distributed 16 truckloads of food on Sunday morning “without incident”, saying there were “no injuries or fatalities”.

“We have heard that these fake reports have been actively fomented by Hamas. They are untrue and fabricated,” it said.”

The live page even reported that statement twenty-five minutes before it promoted the British surgeon’s claim concerning the location of the incident:

The same version of the BBC News website report also quoted “Gaza’s health ministry” without clarifying that it is controlled by Hamas and without addressing the issue of discrepancies in the claims put out by that organisation.

“Gaza’s health ministry said more than 200 cases had arrived at hospitals, including 31 dead.”

At around 13:00 local time on June 1^st, the GHF released security camera footage showing that no such incident had taken place at the location and time alleged. Notably, that footage was not shown to visitors to the BBC News website’s live page and does not appear – or even get a mention – in the version of the written report currently appearing online.

A version of that report published at 17:14 UTC on June 1^st – by then credited to Sebastian Usher and Rushdi Abualouf and headlined “31 killed in Israeli gunfire near Gaza aid centre, Hamas-run health authorities say” – included parts of a statement put out by the IDF over an hour earlier.

“The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said findings from an initial inquiry said its forces had not fired at Gazans while they were near or within aid points.

“In recent hours, false reports have been spread, including serious allegations against the IDF regarding fire toward Gazan residents in the area of the humanitarian aid distribution site in the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said.

“Findings from an initial inquiry indicate that the IDF did not fire at civilians while they were near or within the humanitarian aid distribution site and that reports to this effect are false,” it added.”

Despite that statement from the IDF and the information released earlier by the GHF, the BBC continued to promote a ‘he said-she said’ account of the story. The version of Usher and Abualouf’s report currently appearing on the BBC News website – published in the early hours of June 2^nd and headlined “Red Cross says at least 21 killed and dozens shot in Gaza aid incident” – tells readers that:

“The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said 21 people were “declared dead upon arrival” while women and children were among 179 cases.

The organisation’s statement came after the Hamas-run civil defence agency in Gaza said at least 31 people were killed and many more wounded in the incident, which it blamed on “Israeli gunfire” targeting civilians.

But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said findings from an initial inquiry showed its forces had not fired at people while they were near or within the aid centre. […]

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza, making verifying what is happening in the territory difficult.

The group that runs the aid distribution centre, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), also denied the claims of injuries and casualties at its site and said they had been spread by Hamas.

As of Sunday evening, the situation on the ground remained unclear.”

An hour after the IDF’s statement was made public, including on the BBC News website’s live page, BBC Radio 4’s ‘Six O’Clock News’ (from 02:59 here) was still promoting the claim that “at least 31 people have been killed by Israeli fire” accompanied by the excuse “the BBC is not able to report freely in Gaza”.

The same item included a report by the BBC Jerusalem bureau’s Lucy Williamson who told listeners of “hungry people, shot near Rafah as they waited for an Israeli-backed distribution site to open”. Williamson inaccurately told listeners that “this is just the latest deadly incident” at one of the new aid distribution sites and promoted the claim that “Israel’s critics say it’s using hunger as a weapon of war” – a claim she repeated in a report for BBC television’s ‘News at Ten’ later in the evening.

Williamson’s radio and TV reports also included recordings of a medic named as Ahmed Abu Sweid (and also as Abu Sued) whom she describes as working with ‘Rahma Worldwide’ – apparently the same person who appeared in an entry on the BBC News website’s live page:

None of the BBC’s reporting quoting Dr Ahmed Abu Sweid – also Abou Sweid – informs BBC audiences of his relevant documented political activities in Australia or the terror-linked record of the charity with which he works. As readers may recall, the other doctor mentioned in that entry – Tom Potokar – has previously volunteered with the anti-Israel NGO ‘Medical Aid for Palestinians, as has the above-mentioned British surgeon Victoria Rose.

A particularly significant aspect of the BBC’s copious cross-platform reporting on this story is its portrayal of the new GHF aid distribution scheme, which in previous reporting it has repeatedly described as “controversial”. In one of the BBC’s June 1^st televised reports Sebastian Usher told viewers that:

“…the issue around this new mechanism of distributing aid through this group the Gaza Humanitarian Fund [sic] has again been put into question by these incidents…”

That, of course, is precisely the narrative that Hamas is trying to promote given that the GHF scheme has undermined its control over – and income from – humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. It is also clearly a narrative adopted by too many BBC journalists who are eager to believe any Hamas claim without independent confirmation.

If members of the BBC’s funding public – including perhaps British politicians – assumed that the corporation had learned something about jumping to conclusions before the facts surrounding reported incidents become clear following its finger-scorching coverage of the October 2023 Al Ahli hospital explosion, they would be wrong.

The BBC’s coverage of this latest story once again shows that far too many of its journalists adopt the default position of believing the worst about Israel even when unverified claims come from dubious and/or politically motivated sources – including “local journalists” – and serve Hamas’ propaganda agenda. Over 48 hours after it first began cross-platform promotion of a story that did not happen, the BBC continues to tell its audiences of “Sunday’s killing of Palestinians” and “killings near Gaza aid distribution site“. 

And of course, once again we see the BBC – including its international editor – excusing its own sloppy reporting with what it apparently thinks is the ‘get out of jail free’ card of “Israel’s government doesn’t allow international journalists to report from inside Gaza”.