The concept of proportionality – or as it is more often presented, ‘disproportionality’ – has long been a theme that is widely used in BBC reporting on armed conflicts involving Israel. However, contrary to the narrative frequently advanced by the BBC, that concept does not relate to the relative numbers of people killed on either side.
“Proportionality in war does not mean balancing number of lives lost, or buildings leveled, or dollars in damage. Proportionality is one of the core principles of the law of war—to which all recognized states have agreed. Distorting the meaning of the term undermines the values it is meant to protect.”
Another key point which has not been adequately explained to BBC audiences over the years is that the concept of proportionality relates to specific incidents.
“Crucially, proportionality is calculated based on the expected outcome as perceived by the attacker at the time of the attack; essential information in this regard is possessed solely by the Israeli army and is not known by NGOs and the media. Proportionality cannot be determined by second guessing after the fact because of the number of allegedly civilian casualties.
Furthermore, proportionality is restricted to each individual strike. A high number of overall casualties in the conflict, while tragic, does not per se affect the legality of the operation.”
Nevertheless, on September 12th the BBC News website chose to dust off that theme once again.
The very long report of the same title carries the BBC Verify logo and is credited to “analysis editor” Ros Atkins, with “[a]dditional reporting by Jemimah Herd”. Its take-away messaging is summed up literally in its bottom line:
“Israel insists it followed international law throughout this conflict – and that its actions are proportionate. But nearly all of the experts we spoke to aren’t convinced.”
Some of the experts with whom BBC Verify chose to speak have relevant records which were not made adequately clear to readers.
The report begins with a reversal of chronology and the failure to inform readers that Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation:
“Israel’s military operation in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed thousands of buildings, and severely restricted the supply of food.
The operation was launched after Hamas rampaged through villages, military posts and a music festival in Israel on 7 October 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage. The United Nations’ (UN) human rights body would later conclude that Hamas had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Without any identification of the accusers and their agendas, readers are told that:
“Leading human rights organisations and some countries accuse Israel of ethnic cleansing and acts of genocide. Netanyahu denies this and has strongly criticised such allegations.
An important aspect of how international law applies to wars is the principle of proportionality.
In the words of the International Committee of the Red Cross, it means that “the effects of the means and methods of warfare used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought”.”
The report goes on to state:
“BBC Verify has spoken to a range of international law experts to ask whether they consider Israel’s actions to have been proportionate.
The vast majority of them, with different degrees of certainty, told us that Israel’s actions are not proportionate. In drawing that conclusion, some reference Israel’s conduct of the whole war, some focus on events in recent months.
“I would struggle to see how Israel’s military conduct in Gaza could potentially be characterised as proportionate,” says Prof Janina Dill from the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.
Dr Maria Varaki, from Kings College London, told us that “it is undisputable, non-disputable, actually, that the use of force in Gaza has been disproportionate”.”
No background is provided regarding those alleged “events in recent months” or the information about them that was available to those commentators. Neither are BBC audiences told that Janina Dill, for example, had already decided almost a year ago that “Israel is in violation of international humanitarian law and that outside countries should suspend material assistance such as selling weapons”.
Under the sub-heading “How is proportionality assessed?” – and without any mention of the fact that Hamas’ aim is to destroy Israel – readers are told that:
“Firstly, when a state has the right to self-defence, the overall military response must be proportionate to the threat being responded to.
In addition, if at any point during the military operation, it ceases to be necessary and proportionate, the right to self-defence no longer applies.
For example, some argue, such has been Israel’s success in weakening Hamas, the military operation is no longer proportionate to the threat that Hamas currently poses. This, I should emphasise, is contested.”
Had the BBC reported the rocket attack that took place just five days before this report was published, it might have been able to inform readers that Hamas and other terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip continue to attack Israeli civilians before going on:
“The second way international law addresses proportionality concerns each individual military action within a conflict, such as an air strike.
The expected harm to civilians or civilian buildings must be proportionate to the expected military advantage gained from that particular action.
Intent is a vital consideration here. What civilian harm is anticipated? And is the expected military advantage proportionate to this?
It is important to emphasise that intentionally harming civilians is always a breach of international law. Proportionality is not a consideration if this is done.
Also, while international law does allow for circumstances in which civilians are killed during the course of a military action, there is always an obligation to minimise civilian harm wherever possible.
Both areas of law are clear: whatever the provocation or the threat, there are rules and limits on what can be done – in the overall response and individual actions. They must be proportionate.”
BBC audiences are told nothing about the measures Israel employs to reduce civilian casualties such as evacuation notices, the dropping of leaflets, the sending of SMS messages and phone calls and the ‘roof knocking’ procedure. As is usually the case in BBC reporting, no mention is made of Hamas preventing civilians from evacuating combat areas. Neither does BBC Verify have anything to tell readers about the process that takes place before a strike is carried out.
Under the sub-heading “Civilian casualties”, readers find the BBC’s usual uncritical promotion of casualty figures supplied by the terrorist organisation that began the war.
“More than 64,500 people have been killed by Israel during its campaign – almost half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health. The ministry’s figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Israel has challenged the accuracy of the ministry’s figures, both the overall number and the demographic breakdown, but they are quoted by the UN and others as the most reliable source of statistics on casualties available.”
Notably, it is only Israel that is required by the BBC to provide “evidence” for data:
“At the start of the year, the Israeli military said it had killed about 20,000 Hamas operatives, although it has not provided evidence, and does not allow foreign media, including BBC News, free access to Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not provided any figures for civilian casualties.”
The BBC’s report goes on to frame Hamas’ known tactic of using human shields as something that ‘Israel says’ is the case while ignoring relevant topics such as Palestinian casualties caused by shortfall missiles and the extrajudicial killings that are rarely reported by the BBC. [emphasis added]
“Israel also accuses Hamas – which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK, Israel and others – of causing casualties by operating within civilian areas.
It has released numerous videos of what it says are Hamas tunnels running under civilian buildings, including hospitals. Israel says Hamas uses these underground networks to plan and organise attacks. Some of the freed hostages have also described being held in tunnels.”
While one of the three experts quoted in that part of the report states that he is “not prepared to say that Israel has acted disproportionately”, the other two are. Readers are however not provided with any background information concerning the views of Nimer Sultany – who claims that “Israel was committing genocide from the start” – or Gerry Simpson, who chaired an IHH supporting event in 2016.
In a section sub-headed “Access to food” the BBC promotes the inaccurate suggestion that the entry of food to the Gaza Strip was restricted before the war and fails to clarify that while no food entered between March 2nd and May 19th 2025, prior to that highly augmented amounts had been delivered. Despite the ample evidence of Hamas stealing humanitarian aid, the BBC nevertheless employs its usual practice of promoting the terrorist organisation’s denials.
“The impact on a population’s living conditions is another factor in assessing the proportionality of Israel’s overall response.
Israel’s restricting of goods into Gaza is not new. This was happening before 7 October and increased after the attack.
Then, in early March this year, Israel began a total blockade of aid into Gaza. It said it was doing so to stop Hamas stealing supplies and using them “to finance its terror machine”. Hamas denies doing this.”
Despite Israel having facilitated the delivery of over two million tons of aid – mostly food – throughout the war, the BBC chooses to promote false claims:
“Senior UN officials accused Israel of using food as a “weapon of war”, which is a crime under international law. Such actions cannot be proportionate.
“You can never use starvation of either enemy fighters or the civilian population,” says Prof Mary Ellen O’Connell, of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. “You must permit the entry of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population. That is a principle of customary international law. You cannot use starvation. There are certain weapons you can never use.””
The report goes on to promote the BBC’s standard narrative concerning the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as well as the latest IPC report.
“The latest assessment from the UN-backed global hunger monitor (IPC) is that a quarter of Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from famine.
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called this assessment a “tailor-made fabricated report to fit Hamas’s fake campaign”. The IPC has issued a response defending its methodology.
Aid agencies, senior UN officials, the UK government and others all say the famine and starvation in Gaza are a result of Israel’s actions.”
Notably, Israel’s response to that IPC response is not included in the BBC’s report and readers are not informed of the many criticisms of its methodology.
Under the sub-heading “Destruction of buildings” readers are told that:
“Civilian harm caused by the overall operation also includes the damage or destruction of buildings. […]
As well as destroying and damaging buildings during its offensives, BBC Verify analysis suggests Israel has also systematically destroyed buildings in areas it controls.”
As was the case in that “BBC Verify analysis” which was already discussed here, readers are told nothing about relevant context such as entrances to tunnel shafts concealed within residential and other buildings or the Hamas practice of booby-trapping buildings.
In a section sub-headed ‘Assessing individual attacks’ readers are told that:
“As mentioned earlier, the second way international law addresses proportionality concerns individual actions within a conflict.
Is the expected harm to civilians and civilian buildings from a particular action proportionate to the expected military gain that is sought?”
That section quotes Sir Geoffrey Nice KC (without informing readers that he had already opined in 2015 that war crimes were being committed in the Gaza Strip) as well as UKLFI.
“Sir Geoffrey Nice KC is a barrister and former prosecutor for the UN. On Israel’s calculations around the proportionality of its targeted strikes, he says: “The number of innocent Palestinians killed would seem very hard to justify by the search for an individual Hamas person, however senior that person might be.”
The organisation UK Lawyers for Israel has published a “Q&A on International Law of Armed Conflict and Gaza”. On the issue of proportionality and individual military strikes, it says “it is impossible to assess this without having the information known to the IDF commanders at the time”.
Israel doesn’t provide details of its decisions on individual strikes, so this assessment is difficult. However, patterns of individual strikes can inform our understanding of Israel’s calculations.”
UKLFI is also quoted in a section sub-headed “The right to self-defence”.
“As we said earlier, the right to self-defence connects to the first way that international law addresses proportionality.
The question being: when the right of self-defence applies, is the overall military response proportionate to the threat being responded to?
Immediately after 7 October, many countries, including the US and the UK, made clear that Israel had the right to defend itself.
In its “Briefing Note on Proportionality in Warfare”, UK Lawyers for Israel argues that “Israel is entitled, in self-defence, to enter that territory [Gaza] to dismantle that organisation [Hamas] to prevent it from ever repeating its murderous aim”.
Prof Neve Gordon of Queen Mary University, London, is the author of “Israel’s Occupation”. Recently, he took part in a two-day event which described itself as an inquiry into the UK’s role in Israeli war crimes in Gaza.”
BBC audiences would no doubt have found it useful to know that the “two-day event” in which Neve Gordon participated was Jeremy Corbyn’s “Gaza Tribunal”. Another participant in that mock trial is quoted in the same section of the BBC’s report:
“In fact, several of the experts we spoke to emphasised that, in this instance, Israel’s right to self-defence, as detailed in the UN Charter, is contested.
Francesca Albanese is the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories (Gaza and the West Bank). She is a fierce critic of Israel’s actions and is banned from Israel because of comments about “Israeli oppression” made after 7 October.
Albanese told us that Israel “has completely capsized the current use of principles of distinction, principle of military necessity, precautions, and proportionality in international law”.
On self-defence, she points towards the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) advisory opinion in 2004, that Israel could not invoke self-defence against a population it maintains under occupation.
Israel rejects this argument. It claims it was not occupying Gaza before 7 October because it withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005.
However, the UN still regards Gaza as occupied territory because Israel retained control of Gaza’s airspace, shoreline and most of its land border. An ICJ advisory opinion last year found that Israel’s occupation of Gaza did not end in 2005, and that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful.”
As we have had cause to note here in the past, the UN’s own explanation of why it continued to refer to the Gaza Strip as ‘occupied’ even after Israel’s total disengagement twenty years ago is different to that presented by the BBC.
Towards the end of the report, readers are again told that:
“The vast majority of the experts we spoke to believe that all or some aspect of Israel’s actions have not been proportionate, in particular with regards to its overall operation. They reach that conclusion for different reasons and with differing degrees of certainty.”
“The experts we spoke to” are of course the ones that BBC Verify itself chose to approach and – as the case of Francesca Albanese amply demonstrates – expertise in a particular field by no means automatically makes them impartial observers.
Nevertheless, BBC Verify chose to build its ‘disproportionality’ case on comments provided by such contributors, without for the most part informing readers of relevant aspects of their records or adequately complying with the BBC’s editorial guidelines concerning contributors’ affiliations.
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