Over three years ago, in a post about the BBC’s silence on the topic of the bias of members of the UN HRC’s controversial “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel”, we observed that:
“Although BBC audiences have seen no coverage of that controversial commission of inquiry for over a year, at some point the BBC will no doubt get round to reporting its ‘findings’. As is usually the case, that reporting is likely be uncritical and unquestioning and based on the BBC’s past record, it is reasonable to expect that the publicly expressed bias of the commissioners will be ignored…”
BBC SILENT ON UNHRC COMMISSION BIAS
That was indeed the case in June 2024 when the BBC covered a report by that commission of inquiry in which Israel was accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity:
BBC NEWS WEBSITE PROMOTES INACCURATE CLAIMS ABOUT ICC WARRANTS
The same omissions plagued BBC coverage of another report put out by that same CoI in March 2025:
MORE UNCRITICAL AND CONTEXT-FREE BBC PROMOTION OF UN ALLEGATIONS
It therefore came as no surprise to find the BBC News website promoting the latest ‘independent’ report from that body bright and early on the morning of September 16th.
Even before the press conference presenting that report had concluded, the BBC – perhaps having been equipped with a pre-release copy – published two items at the exact same time:
“Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, UN commission of inquiry says”, by David Gritten and Imogen Foulkes
“Bowen: UN commission report on genocide is blunt indictment of Israel’s actions in Gaza”, by Jeremy Bowen
The current version of the first of those articles – originally credited to Gritten, with Foulkes added hours later – has only this to tell BBC audiences about that long-controversial commission:
“The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate all alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The three-member expert panel is chaired by Navi Pillay, a South African former UN human rights chief who was president of the international tribunal on Rwanda’s genocide. The two other members are Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer, and Miloon Kothari, an Indian expert on housing and land rights.
The commission has previously concluded that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and other grave violations of international law on 7 October 2023, and that Israeli security forces have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.”
Once again BBC audiences are told precisely nothing about the problematic records of Pillay, Sidoti and Kothari or the background to the establishment of that commission.
Jeremy Bowen has even less to tell his readers:
“The Israelis have dismissed the report as antisemitic lies inspired by Hamas. It was compiled by a commission of inquiry set up by the UN Human Rights Council. Israel and the US are boycotting the Council, which both countries say is biased against them.”
Both those BBC articles devote a considerable proportion of their word count to uncritical promotion of the CoI report’s allegations, including the claims concerning statements supposedly made by Israeli officials.
Gritten and Foulkes:
“’We went to the facts first,” Pillay told the BBC. “So we looked at statements made by the Israeli authorities indicating genocidal intent. And we looked at the pattern of conduct of Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces to show that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference.” […]
However, the commission’s report concludes that President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant have “incited the commission of genocide” in their speeches and statements.
“As early as 7 October 2023, Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed to inflict… ‘mighty vengeance’ on ‘all of the places where Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble’,” Pillay said.
“His use of the phrase ‘wicked city’ in the same statement implied that he saw the whole city of Gaza [Gaza City] as responsible and a target for vengeance. And he told Palestinians to ‘leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere’.”
Gallant said days after 7 October 2023 that Israel was “fighting human animals, and we act accordingly”. Herzog meanwhile stated that “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” for the Hamas-led attack.”
Bowen:
“As well as the results of military action, the UN report singles out three Israeli officials for inciting genocide.
They are Yoav Gallant, then the defence minister, who said on 9 October 2023 that Israel was fighting “human animals”. Like Prime Minister Netanyahu, Gallant already faces an arrest warrant for war crimes from the International Criminal Court.
Netanyahu is also accused of incitement by comparing the Gaza war to the story of the Jewish fight against an enemy known as Amalek. In the bible God tells the Jewish people to eliminate all the Amalek men, women and children, as well as their possessions and their animals.
The third official singled out is President Isaac Herzog, who in the first week of the war condemned Gaza’s Palestinians for not rising up against Hamas. He said on 13 October 2023 that “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible”.”
As reported by the Jewish News:
“Critics of the commission’s findings have pointed out that it has relied on the same out-of-context statements previously used by those who have sought to accuse Israel of genocide. For example, the commission cited then-defence Minister Yoav Gallant saying, days after 7 October, that Israel was “fighting human animals, and we act accordingly”, without acknowledging that it was clear from the context of his comments that Gallant was referring to Hamas, rather than Gazans as a whole. Similarly, the Commission cited comments by Isaac Herzog, Israel’s President, who said “it’s an entire nation out there that is responsible” – failing to acknowledge that in the exact same press conference he made it clear that the targeting of innocents in Gaza would not be countenanced.”
Salo Aizenberg provides a detailed explanation of the inaccuracy of those already refuted CoI claims :
“The first piece of “evidence” of intent to genocide cited by the Commission (Para. 168) is a statement by Netanyahu: “all of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in, that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble. I say to residents of Gaza: leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Even the Report acknowledges that the statement refers to Hamas locations, yet it claims the phrase “wicked city” somehow implicates the entire population of Gaza for death by the IDF as national policy. It further asserts that because Netanyahu did not explicitly distinguish between combatants and civilians when referring to “residents,” the term must be read as encompassing all Palestinians.
This is an absurd overreading, twisting a plain message that Hamas is the target and warning civilians of the impending assault into a genocidal manifesto. By the Commission’s logic, a statement that explicitly directs civilians to leave for safety is somehow invalidated by a single adjective, “wicked,” used only a few words later. Clear meaning is discarded and replaced with tortured speculation, as if intent can be conjured out of stray phrasing while context is ignored. The Report does not reveal intent; it manufactures it through linguistic contortions so extreme that almost any wartime statement could be repackaged as supposed proof of genocide.
The Commission further claims that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s invocation of “Remember what Amalek did to you” on October 28, 2023, is evidence of genocidal intent. (Para. 228) This interpretation misrepresents the phrase’s historical and cultural context. It originates from Deuteronomy 25:17, which instructs the Israelites to remember the attack by the Amalekites during their exodus from Egypt. It is a call to remember past injustices, not a directive for future violence. The Commission ignores this context and instead cites 1 Samuel 15:13, which discusses “destroying” Amalek; but this is not the verse Netanyahu invoked, making their interpretation demonstrably inaccurate.
Netanyahu’s reference to Amalek aligns with a long tradition of emphasizing historical memory in the face of contemporary threats. His office clarified that the invocation was not an incitement to genocide but a description of the “utterly evil actions perpetrated by the genocidal terrorists of Hamas on October 7th and the need to confront them.” Netanyahu himself called the distortion of the phrase “preposterous” and said it “reflects deep historical ignorance.””
Remarkably, none of the three BBC journalists covering this story bothered to investigate those selective and badly translated straw-clutching quotes – as well as any other of the claims that have already been refuted or the ones that do not stand up to examination – before blindly reproducing them in their reports.
Both those BBC reports repeat the famine narrative without any mention of the highly problematic methodology used by the IPC to arrive at its conclusion:
Gritten and Foulkes:
“Most of the population has also been repeatedly displaced; more than 90% of homes are estimated to be damaged or destroyed; the healthcare, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; and UN-backed food security experts have declared a famine in Gaza City.”
Bowen:
“Among a long list of accusations is Israeli targeting of civilians that it has a legal obligation to protect, and the imposition of “inhumane conditions causing the death of Palestinians, including the deprivation of food, water and medicines”. That is a reference to the blockade that has produced a famine as well as widespread starvation, according to the IPC, the international body that assesses food emergencies.”
Gritten and Foulkes’ report promotes a link to the BBC’s September 1st report promoting the thoroughly discredited IAGS declaration of ‘genocide’ that BBC audiences have yet to be told was opposed by a larger number of genocide, Holocaust, and legal scholars.
Both reports note the ongoing case at the ICJ (that has been repeatedly misrepresented in BBC content), without any discussion of the significance of the publication of this UN CoI report before a ruling has been made.
Gritten and Foulkes:
“The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently hearing a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israeli forces of genocide, but it could take years to reach a conclusion. Israel has called the case “wholly unfounded” and based on “biased and false claims”.”
Bowen:
“At the International Court of Justice in The Hague, South Africa has brought a case that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians. It will take several years for the case to be adjudicated.”
Given the BBC’s repeated promotion of the ‘genocide’ libel, it comes as no surprise to find the corporation rushing to uncritically amplify yet another politically motivated ‘report’ that promotes the corporation’s chosen narrative, once again without any attempt to explain to audiences the methodology and motivations of the long discredited commission that is responsible for this latest politicisation of the notion of expertise and cheapening of the crime of genocide.
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