BBC Middle East bureau chief pushes a dishonest narrative

Previously we discussed an article published by the Guardian on the afternoon of August 21^st:

GUARDIAN “83%” CIVILIAN DEATH TOLL CLAIM IS FARCICAL

“The investigation, replete with charts and other visuals purportedly illustrating that “the apparent ratio of civilians to combatants among the dead” is one of “the worst in modern warfare”, is based on a truly absurd calculation: asserting that the 8,900 listed names of terrorists killed necessarily represent every terrorist death. So, by subtracting 8,900 from the Hamas ministry’s tally in May, which was 53,000, the article insists, we learn that the ratio of civilians killed by Israel is at 83%.”

Despite the obvious absurdity of that “83%” claim and the many questions that were quickly raised about the investigation’s methodology, a BBC ‘newspaper headlines’ report titled “‘Record asylum claims’ and ‘Strictly rocked’” tells readers that:

“The Guardian says it has seen figures from a classified Israeli military database which suggests that 83% of those killed in Gaza since the war began are civilians. It is a proportion that the paper says is “extremely high” for modern warfare. The Israeli military tells the paper that the figures are “incorrect” and “do not reflect the data available in its systems”.”

Notably, although that paragraph now appears at the top of the report, in the original version it did not.

Moreover, the August 21^st edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘PM’ included a conversation between presenter Evan Davis and “the BBC’s Middle East bureau chief” Jo Floto during which (from 23:44) listeners heard the following: [emphasis in italics in the original, emphasis in bold added]

Davis: “Jo – we should also report on…ahm…well, a report that…is trying to get to the bottom of the demographic of those who died in Gaza.”

Floto: “Yes, so what we’ve got today from the Guardian, in conjunction with an Israeli magazine called 972 Magazine, they’ve managed to get hold of – or rather, speak to people who’ve seen – a data base that the military are using – have been using – in Israel to look at how many militants, how many Hamas members, they’ve actually managed to kill. And they’re cross-checking that against the data provided by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza. Their analysis of those two data bases suggests that the military have looked at the payroll that Hamas has got, compared who’s been killed off it and 83% of the people on that casualty list are not members of Hamas or at least don’t appear on that data base. So that raises some big questions about the proportion of civilians being killed in this war.”

Clearly the BBC’s Middle East bureau chief did not bother to conduct any in depth examination or verification of the claims published by the Guardian some four hours prior to his appearance on that Radio 4 programme.

Had he done so – and especially if the BBC had bothered to report it at the time – he may have recalled that in February 2024, Hamas had already estimated that “it had lost 6,000 fighters during the four-month-old conflict”. Floto did not question the Guardian’s claim that as of May 2025, the number of Hamas fighters killed stood at 8,900, meaning that he apparently believes that fewer Hamas terrorists were killed in the fifteen months between February 2024 and May 2025 than in the four months between October 2023 and February 2024.

It is of course abundantly clear that Floto was not in the least bit interested in the question of the accuracy of the report by the Guardian and two less than reliable activist Israeli outlets. For the BBC’s Middle East bureau chief that ‘investigation’ simply presented an opportunity to promote a narrative: “So that raises some big questions about the proportion of civilians being killed in this war”.

That, of course, should be of considerable concern to anyone getting their Middle East related news from the BBC.

Related Articles:

BBC NEWS IGNORES HAMAS ADMISSION OF TERRORIST CASUALTIES

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