On September 18th the BBC News website published a report headlined “Israeli air strikes hit southern Lebanon” on its ‘Middle East’ page.
Credited to Mallory Moench and Hugo Bachega, that report has this to tell readers about those pre-announced strikes: [emphasis added]
“Israel has carried out a large wave of air strikes in southern Lebanon, saying it was targeting positions of the Iranian-backed armed group Hezbollah.
The attacks came after evacuation warnings were issued for several locations. There has been no immediate report of casualties. […]
Footage posted online showed huge plumes of smoke in Mais al-Jabal, one of the locations hit.
An Israeli military spokesman said the targets were infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah and in response to the group’s attempts to re-establish activities in the area. He provided no evidence.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee said its forces had attacked and raided Hezbollah weapons warehouses, and their presence “constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.
He earlier had warned residents to evacuate buildings in the villages of Mais al-Jabal, Kfar Tibnit and Debbin, and later in two more villages.”
With Moench and Bachega clearly having read the statement put out by the IDF Arabic spokesman, they should have been able to report that the sites struck were “weapons depots belonging the Hezbollah’s Radwan Force” – i.e. the commando unit that was at the centre of the terrorist organisation’s plan to invade Israel and which it has been trying to rebuild in southern Lebanon since the November 2024 ceasefire came into effect.
Moench and Bachega should also have been able to tell BBC audiences about the secondary explosions visible in video footage of those strikes.
Part of the report is given over to the amplification of statements made by Lebanon’s prime minister.
“The Lebanese prime minister called on the international community to urge Israel to stop what he described as intimidation and attacks, and to fulfil its ceasefire obligations. […]
Lebanon’s prime minister Nawaf Salam said on X his country was committed to ceasing hostile actions, but asked: “Where is Israel’s commitment to these mechanisms?”
He called on the international community, especially the countries sponsoring the ceasefire, “to exert maximum pressure on Israel to immediately stop its aggressions”, to immediately withdraw from Lebanese territory and release prisoners.”
Interestingly, Moench and Bachega have nothing to tell BBC audiences about Hizballah’s repeated violations, as identified by both Israel and the Lebanese army.
The ceasefire agreement of November 2024 is portrayed as follows:
“The US and France-brokered ceasefire was agreed between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, not Hezbollah.
It states that Lebanon will “prevent Hezbollah and all other armed groups in the territory of Lebanon from carrying out any operations against Israel”. Meanwhile, Israel will “not carry out any offensive military operations against Lebanese targets, including civilian, military, or other state targets, in the territory of Lebanon”.
The Lebanese government has tasked the army with establishing a state monopoly on arms, a decision which Hezbollah has said it will disregard.”
Readers are not informed that in addition to that one quoted clause in the agreement, it also states that the Lebanese armed forces will “commence the implementation of its obligations under the commitments, including the dismantling of unauthorized sites and infrastructure and confiscating unauthorized arms and related materiel.”
Neither are BBC audiences told that:
“The November 2024 Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire agreement included an addendum that secures Israel’s right to self-defense against any future threat that Hezbollah may pose to Israel.”
Nearly ten months have gone by since that ceasefire agreement came into effect but the central issue of the disarmament of Hizballah has yet to see much practical progress. The most recent coverage of that topic on the BBC News website was in the August 6th report that prioritised Hizballah messaging which is again promoted in this article’s final paragraph.
BBC audiences are clearly not being provided with the full range of information concerning Hizballah’s efforts to rebuild its capabilities in southern Lebanon, the threat that poses to Israeli civilians who, after many months, were finally able to return to their homes in the north and the need for the IDF to prevent such threats.
Rather than investigating and reporting on that topic itself, the BBC apparently prefers to wait until the IDF Spokesman ‘provides evidence’, with the result being that all the corporation provides are superficial reports such as this one by Moench and Bachega which focus audience attentions on “Israeli air strikes” while failing to provide the full context to the story.
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This is so typical of Bachega’s impartial reporting – he does it the same way for BBC Radio 4 News Bulletins- there must be a special BBC Unit to train their Mid East journalists how to distort the truth by missing out operative details and making Israel appear wrong.
Such reports encouraged Starmer in his so called “recognition of “Palestine”