Previously we discussed BBC coverage of the May 13th strikes adjacent to – rather than ‘on’ – the EU founded and Hamas ministry of health run European Hospital in Khan Younis, including two items produced by BBC Verify:
BBC NEWS WEBSITE REPORTING ON STRIKES AROUND THE EUROPEAN HOSPITAL
BBC VERIFY’S AGENDA-DRIVEN RETURN TO THE EUROPEAN HOSPITAL STORY
On June 7th the IDF announced that troops were operating inside the tunnels underneath and around that hospital and released related video and photographs.
On June 8th Israeli reporters and fifteen journalists from foreign news outlets including the Telegraph, the New York Times and AP were invited to see those tunnels for themselves.
One of the videos released by the IDF shows the route of those tunnels, including the section underneath a nearby school which BBC Verify used as the basis for or a ‘gotcha’ moment in its report published on May 14th.
“In that filmed report Merlyn Thomas tells BBC audiences that:
Thomas: “But Israel has said it was targeting what it called underground terrorist infrastructure at the hospital site but didn’t provide evidence of this. It did however release this video claiming to show the European hospital. But it doesn’t. We verified it’s actually a school located a few hundred metres away.””
On the evening of June 8th the BBC News website published a report by Aleks Phillips and Sebastian Usher headlined “Israel says Hamas Gaza chief Sinwar’s body identified” which opens as follows:
“The Israeli military has said it has located and identified the body of Mohammed Sinwar, the military leader of Palestinian armed group Hamas in Gaza.
His body was discovered in a tunnel underneath the European Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Sunday.
It said it had verified the body’s identity through DNA checks – though Hamas has not publicly confirmed his death.”
Later, readers are told that:
“It [the IDF] took a small group of foreign journalists into Gaza to Khan Younis to show them the tunnel on Sunday.
It also published video of the small entrance to the tunnel, accessible through freshly dug earth just in front of the European Hospital.”
And: [emphasis added]
“Israel has repeatedly accused Hamas of using hospitals as hiding places for weapons and command centres, which the group denies. […]
Hospital staff in Gaza have also repeatedly denied that Hamas is using their facilities as a base.”
If one had assumed that this latest evidence of Hamas exploitation of hospitals, including reports by foreign journalists, would have convinced the BBC of the redundancy of amplifying such denials, one would clearly be mistaken. Moreover, Phillips and Usher go on:
“The IDF will point to this latest footage as vindication of its claims and its military strategy.
As with so much in Gaza, however, full independent verification is not possible.”
Also on June 8th, the BBC News website published a filmed report by BBC Verify titled “BBC Verify examines tunnels footage after IDF says Hamas leader body found”.
“The IDF have released new footage that they say shows the underground tunnel network underneath the European hospital in southern Gaza.
The Israeli army say they’ve found the body of Mohammed Sinwar – the Hamas leader in Gaza – who they said was the target of Israeli airstrikes on 13 May.
Following BBC Verify’s previous investigation into the strikes, we’ve been piecing together the footage to try understand what it shows.
BBC Verify’s Merlyn Thomas has more.
Produced by Mohamed Shalaby and Jemimah Herd. Graphics by Mark Edwards. Verification by Benedict Garman.”
In that report (which was also promoted on BBC World Service radio’s ‘OS’ on June 10th, from 04:30 here), Merlyn Thomas tells BBC audiences that:
Thomas: “The first thing to say is that the released material has been edited by the IDF. […] Now it’s clear the tunnel is heading towards the hospital building but there are several edits in the video. Because of this, we’re not able to verify the precise route, tunnel length or the location of any rooms.”
In other words, BBC Verify’s take-away message is that they cannot tell BBC audiences whether what the IDF ‘says’ is accurate. Even the New York Times managed to report that “the tunnel led deep beneath a major hospital in southern Gaza” but apparently BBC Verify does not consider the eye-witness accounts of British, American and other foreign journalists – let alone Israeli reporters – to be sufficient ‘verification’.
Thomas also tells viewers that:
Thomas: “The Israeli army escorted a group of international journalists into Gaza to see the tunnels. The BBC wasn’t invited. The IDF doesn’t allow international journalists to freely operate inside Gaza.”
Thomas of course does not bother to remind BBC audiences that even after a BBC journalist was invited to participate in a tour of another hospital exploited by Hamas in November 2023, the BBC’s international editor continued to claim that “[t]he evidence up to now – those piles of Kalashnikovs and so on – frankly is not convincing”.
It is of course notable that while the BBC dismisses video footage filmed by the IDF because of “edits”, a similar level of critical examination is not applied to the denials repeatedly put out by Hamas’ Government Media Office or “hospital staff” every time the exploitation of hospitals for military purposes is exposed and those denials continue to be uncritically promoted in BBC content.
