Back in early April 2024 we documented the BBC’s failure to update a report that had appeared on March 30th following the emergence of new information.
NO BBC FOLLOW UP ON INACCURATE LEBANON ‘SHELLING’ STORY
The headline to that report by Mattea Bubalo read “UN observers wounded by shelling in southern Lebanon”, with readers told in its opening lines that “Three United Nations observers and a translator have been wounded by shelling in Rmeish, southern Lebanon” and:
“In a statement, Unifil said a shell had exploded near the group who had been on a foot patrol along the UN-demarcated Blue Line that divides southern Lebanon from Israel.
It described the targeting of peacekeepers as “unacceptable”.”
As we noted at the time:
“The use of the terms “shelling” and “a shell” of course suggests to readers that the weapon concerned was a projectile with a payload that includes explosives. Contrary to the BBC’s claim, the statement put out by UNIFIL does not include the words “a shell”.”
The BBC’s report also told readers that:
“Lebanon’s state news agency reported that an Israeli drone strike was behind the explosion, but the Israeli military denied it was responsible.”
And:
“Lebanon’s state run National News Agency said Israeli “enemy drones” raided the area in southern Lebanon where the observers were wounded.
Israel’s military denied this, saying in a statement: “Contrary to the reports, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] did not strike a Unifil vehicle in the area of Rmeish this morning.””
Five days after the appearance of that BBC report, new information emerged.
“An ongoing Lebanese army investigation determined that a landmine was the cause of the blast, a judicial official said Wednesday,
“Preliminary results of a Lebanese army investigation have found that the observers were wounded by a landmine,” the Lebanese official told AFP…”
The BBC News website did not however update its report and so CAMERA UK submitted a complaint on April 6th 2024. On April 14th 2024 we were informed that it would take more time to address our complaint and on May 5th 2024 we were told that the timeframe for doing so had expired.
Over sixteen months later, on August 22nd 2025, we received a communication from the BBC which opens as follows:
“We have been doing an audit of our complaints system and have unfortunately found some complaints that did not receive a reply from the newsroom when they were submitted, this one included, for which we would like to offer sincere apologies.
Please be assured that your feedback was logged at the time and shared with senior editors via our overnight reports.
However, we do appreciate that you did not receive an editorial response so even though quite some time has elapsed we would like to provide one now.”
With regard to the complaint itself, the BBC’s response states: [emphasis added]
“You complained that we reported on 30 March 2024 that three United Nations observers and a translator had been wounded by shellfire, according to the UN.
You are correct in saying that the UN press release put out at the time did not mention shelling as a cause of the wounding, and neither did the statement put out by the peace-keeping force Unifil.
We took our information about the incident from usually very reliable news agencies.
We have now amended our report to cut out all suggestions that the wounding was caused by shelling. We have added a line to say that a landmine was reportedly to blame.
We have added a note to the end of the report, which says: Clarification 22 August 2025: This story originally said the peace-keepers had been injured by shelling, based on agency reports at the time. It was later amended in line with an updated Unifil statement to say they had been injured in an explosion, the cause of which was still being investigated.”
The headline to that report has been amended and now reads “UN observers wounded by explosion in southern Lebanon”. The footnote reads as follows:
However, while the BBC’s footnote states that the cause of the explosion “was still being investigated” the IDF had already announced in April 2024 that it was caused by an explosive device planted by Hizballah.
While the amended version of the BBC’s report does not refer to Hizballah in the context of that explosion at all – and despite the BBC’s claim that it had “amended our report to cut out all suggestions that the wounding was caused by shelling” – it does continue to promote the inaccurate claims sourced at the time from Lebanese media.
“Lebanon’s state news agency reported that an Israeli drone strike was behind the explosion, but the Israeli military denied it was responsible. […]
Lebanon’s state run National News Agency said Israeli “enemy drones” raided the area in southern Lebanon where the observers were wounded.
Israel’s military denied this, saying in a statement: “Contrary to the reports, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] did not strike a Unifil vehicle in the area of Rmeish this morning.””
In other words, not only has that disinformation been promoted on the BBC News website for over sixteen months but even after corrections were made to parts of the report, the BBC still continues to promote the falsehood in its typical ‘he said-she said’ style.
CAMERA UK has submitted a Stage 1b complaint.
