Previously we discussed the BBC’s May 20th platforming of UN OCHA’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher and its failure not only to challenge the gross disinformation he promoted at the time but also to add explanatory notes to content which further amplified that disinformation for a whole week after the interview.
CROSS-PLATFORM PROMOTION OF UN DISINFORMATION BY THE BBC
HOW IS THE BBC HANDLING ITS OWN PROMOTION OF ‘14,000 BABIES’ DISINFORMATION?
In light of the controversy created by that interview and the opportunistic repetition of Fletcher’s disinformation, one might have expected the BBC to be rather cautious about platforming him once again.
Instead, the BBC brought in a journalist with one of the worst records of impartiality as far as reporting on the current conflict is concerned – Fergal Keane – to conduct a long face-to-face interview with Fletcher.
On May 30th the BBC News website published a filmed report titled “World has responsibility to get aid into Gaza, UN official tells BBC”.
“Gaza has been subjected to forced starvation by Israel, a top UN official has told the BBC.
Tom Fletcher told special correspondent Fergal Keane that the world has a responsibility to take greater action to get aid into Gaza and to “act to prevent genocide”.
Israel has claimed Hamas steals food aid and has accused the UN of refusing to cooperate with their military organised aid distribution centres.”
On the same day, the BBC News website also published a written report by Keane headlined “Gaza subjected to forced starvation, top UN official tells BBC” which features that filmed report and includes a footnote stating that the full 26-minute interview would be aired on BBC television on May 31st.
“Mr Fletcher’s full interview will be broadcast on the BBC News Channel at 00:30BST and 16:30BST on Saturday.”
The 4:41minute-long edited version of that interview appearing on the BBC News website is remarkable for Keane’s promotion of slogans such as “ethnic cleansing” and “war crimes” which were also aired in the lead item of the May 30th edition of the BBC World Service’s ‘Global News Podcast’. The interview opens in Keane’s typically emotional and dramatic style. [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]
Keane: “The chaos and the pity. The desperation that is the legacy when aid is blocked. Today the UN’s chief of humanitarian affairs – a former British diplomat – told me Israel had forcibly starved Gaza.”
Like his colleagues at BBC Verify only days earlier, Keane of course had nothing to tell his viewers 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 did he bother to inform BBC audiences that since the beginning of the war, nearly 1.8 million tons of aid have been delivered.
Fletcher then passes off statements made by a minority of ministers in Israel’s current government as though they are official government policy and without clarifying that no such ‘forced removal’ outside the Gaza Strip has taken place.
Fletcher: “I mean so out loud Israeli ministers have been saying that they want the population of Gaza to be relocated.”
Keane: “Is that ethnic cleansing?”
Fletcher: “It’s the forced removal of the population…”
Keane: “Ethnic cleansing.”
Fletcher:”…and in this case, by withholding aid. Now again, the courts will judge what to call that and I have to pick my words very, very carefully. I’m a humanitarian. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a politician.”
Keane: “To be clear, what we are seeing is the forced starvation of the population.”
Fletcher: “We’re seeing food sat on the borders and not being allowed in when there is a population on the other side of the border that is starving and we’re hearing Israeli ministers say that it is to put pressure on the population of Gaza. Now we just want to work. We have a plan to deliver. We just want to get in.”
Failing to inform BBC audiences that since the resumption of humanitarian aid supplies was announced on May 19th, Israel has repeatedly clarified that the only thing stopping UN aid from being transported inside the Gaza Strip is the UN itself, Keane goes on to promote another libel.
Keane: “That’s a war crime – isn’t it? – if you use food as a weapon.”
Fletcher: “Yeah, it is classified as a war crime. Obviously these are issues for the courts to take judgement on and ultimately for history to take a judgement on. As a humanitarian, my interest is just in getting as much of that aid in as possible, as quickly as possible.”
With Keane and Fletcher obviously both keen to promote that “war crime” smear, it is not surprising that BBC audiences were not informed that in the ten days preceding the appearance of this interview, the numbers of trucks carrying aid – food, medicines and medical supplies – for which Israel facilitated entry to the Gaza Strip were as follows:
May 19 – 5
May 20 – 93
May 21 – 100
May 22 – 107
May 23 – 83
May 25 – 107
May 26 – 170
May 27 – 95
May 28 – 121
May 29 – 76
In other words, Fergal Keane and his ‘humanitarian’ interviewee avoided telling BBC audiences about 957 truckloads of humanitarian aid delivered in ten days – along with unknown numbers of tons of aid already stored in a UN warehouse in Deir al Balah – in order to promote their narratives of “forced starvation” and “war crime”.
Keane continues with mention of a topic on which the BBC has serially failed to report properly for over 19 months:
Keane: “Israel has claimed that Hamas steals food aid and it accuses the UN of acting like a mafia by refusing to cooperate with Israel’s military organised aid distribution centres. And the Israelis say they have to do it their way because Hamas is stealing the aid.”
Fletcher: “There’s very, very little…ah…stealing of aid by Hamas. Now, is some of that aid then getting to market and being stolen by Hamas for market or bought at the market? Now there’s always a risk of that in such a complex, contested, militarised environment. I don’t want to see any of that aid getting to Hamas. That matters to us because these are our principles – neutral, impartiality, independent. So it’s in our interests to stop that aid getting to Hamas and making sure it gets to civilians.”
BBC audiences are not told what Tom Fletcher thinks Hamas’ estimated 30 – 40,000 fighters have been eating for the past 20 months before Keane moves on to another topic.
Keane: “Mr Fletcher visited Gaza in February while there was still a ceasefire. In recent days he’s come under criticism for stating that 14,000 babies would die in 48 hours because of the blockade – a claim which the UN has retracted. Didn’t you damage your own case when you talked about 14,000 babies dying within 48 hours? Pretty big gaffe.”
Fletcher: “I think we’ve got to be very, very careful with our numbers. We’ve got to be precise. And that’s a lesson that I’ve learned in the past couple of weeks.”
Keane: “Are you sorry for that?”
Fletcher: “I really….I regret that I used that 48 hours because in reality, you know, those deaths will take place over a longer time. But they are at risk.”
Keane fails to inform viewers that the “longer time” is eleven months, that the “babies” are in fact children under five, that the “deaths” are in fact malnourishment and that the May 12th IPC assessment upon which Fletcher’s false statement was based assumed that humanitarian aid would not be entering the Gaza Strip – which is not the case since May 19th.
Keane then mentions another inaccurate claim made by Fletcher in an interview with CNN several days earlier.
Keane: “But some people take that – and along with the statement about thousands of trucks lined up on the border not being able to get in – the risk is looking like a hype-merchant.”
Fletcher: “There is that risk and there is a risk, you know, when we’re out there using these big numbers – and they are overwhelming numbers – you know we’ve got provisions to fill 10,000 trucks and get them in. That can feed everyone in Gaza – all the civilians – for several months. And that’s the real point here.”
Keane: “Mr Fletcher drew international attention when two weeks ago he appealed to the UN Security Council to act to prevent a genocide in Gaza – a statement Israel attacked as support for Hamas. But how will history judge how the world responded to the Gaza crisis?”
Fletcher: “History will judge us. Ah…I think that history will be tough in the way it judges us and must be. When I went to the Security Council, I chose my words very carefully and I’m choosing them again carefully now. I wanted to issue a warning to the Security Council that in previous cases – Rwanda, Srebrenica, Sri Lanka – the world had told us afterwards that we didn’t act in time, that we didn’t sound the warning and ask that the world respond to prevent genocide. And that’s my call to the Security Council and the world right now. Will you act to prevent genocide? It’s been announced in advance. We can’t say we didn’t know what was happening. And all I’m asking is for the international community to be able to say tell them we did what we could. That’s what we’re trying to do and nothing we get thrown at us will stop us doing that.”
Some of Fletcher’s ‘carefully chosen words’ in that May 13th statement to the UN SC made it perfectly clear that his agenda includes scuppering the alternative to UN distribution of aid known as the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which on the day that this interview was published, announced that it had already distributed over two million meals to residents of the Gaza Strip in four days:
“Mr. Fletcher recalled that Israel has clear obligations under international humanitarian law, and as the occupying power must agree to aid and facilitate it.
“For anyone still pretending to be in any doubt, the Israeli-designed distribution modality is not the answer,” he stated, noting that among other things, the plan “makes starvation a bargaining chip.”
“It is cynical sideshow. A deliberate distraction. A fig leaf for further violence and displacement,” he told ambassadors. “If any of that still matters, have no part in it.””
That narrative is remarkably similar to the one the BBC has been promoting in reports repeatedly describing the GHF as “controversial” – for example:
“Head of controversial Israel-backed Gaza aid group resigns”
“Controversial US-backed group says it has begun aid distribution in Gaza”
“How controversial US-Israeli backed Gaza aid plan turned to chaos”
Keane’s closing remarks include the sole passing reference in his entire report to the reason Israel has been fighting a war in the Gaza Strip for over 19 months.
Keane: “In the ruins of Gaza the hunger, the fear, the trauma, the anguish too of Israel’s hostages. 601 days of suffering for all in Gaza and more coming.”
Clearly Fergal Keane’s widely promoted interview with Fletcher does absolutely nothing to provide BBC audiences with accurate and impartial information concerning the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip – but that of course was not its aim. The point of this latest BBC promotion of Fletcher was to facilitate and spread UN OCHA’s narrative on the topic of aid and in particular to bolster the notion that aid distribution which does not involve that organisation – and bypasses Hamas – is not viable.
And along the way, Keane and Fletcher promoted unsubstantiated smears including “forced starvation”, “ethnic cleansing”, “war crimes” and “genocide” – with both participants in that cosy conversation knowing full well that such irresponsible language likewise serves the interests of Hamas’ psychological warfare.
How should new post 7.10.2023 history of World War 2 books for schools be re-written? After all the British Royal Navy throughout the war conducted a pretty thorough maritime blockade of its enemy Germany and latterly in the war did the same in poor Greece. There is also no recorded evidence of the allies sending directly or through neutral third parties aid to any of the AXIS powers
Seems Keane and Fletcher have forgotten about Sudan – 4 plus million. Ah, but why bother with that they say because no Jews are involved!
https://time.com/7262044/usaid-sudan-starvation-humanitarian-crisis/
https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/more-than-4-million-refugees-have-fled-sudan-since-war-began-un-says-2025-06-03/