Shortly after British Jews began celebrating Rosh HaShana on the evening of September 22nd, the BBC One programme ‘Panorama’ aired an “investigative documentary….revealing the truth” under the title ‘Gaza: Dying for Food’.
“As the UK and others officially recognise a Palestinian state at the United Nations, Panorama and BBC Eye investigate the desperate shortages of food in Gaza and the allegations of war crimes. With Israel expanding its military campaign in the Gaza Strip and blaming Hamas for the shortages of food there, Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, asks what all this means for the million or so Palestinians who now face being displaced from their homes in Gaza City and the prospect of having to flee again.
This documentary follows the stories of civilians on the ground, and medics and humanitarian organisations speak about the current situation. However, most international aid organisations find themselves sidelined, and in some cases, replaced by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. We investigate this new organisation and the claims that hundreds of civilians have been shot at or near its distribution sites while seeking food.”
In addition to being accessible in the UK on BBC iPlayer for the coming eleven months, that programme is also available on YouTube. It was promoted on other BBC platforms including versions of the ‘Newscast’ programme and on the BBC News website in the form of a written report titled “Killed seeking food – Jeremy Bowen on Abdullah’s shooting and Gaza’s lethal aid system”.
As regular readers will be aware, the BBC wasted no time in joining a PR campaign to paint the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) as ‘controversial’, even before its operations had begun. That editorial policy has continued since late May, with coverage including a Jeremy Bowen report featuring a ‘GHF whistleblower’ in late July.
The fact that his ‘whistleblower’ turned out to have fabricated a story about a child being killed by Israeli soldiers at a GHF site clearly did not deter Jeremy Bowen from using two additional anonymous ‘whistleblowers’ in this Panorama report. Apparently the opportunity to further promote the BBC’s anti-GHF campaign, along with two other campaigns to which the BBC long since self-conscripted – on the topics of ‘starvation’ and ‘genocide’ – was irresistible.
Indeed, Bowen clarifies the agenda of this report in the opening lines of his narration, telling BBC audiences that:
“Israel faces accusations of a genocidal attack on Gaza’s Palestinians. Not just with high explosive but by using food as a weapon of war.” […]
“More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed around the new Israeli-controlled food distribution sites.”
When the IPC published its report in August claiming that famine was underway in certain parts of the Gaza Strip, the BBC was quick off the mark to provide extensive amplification to that narrative. Notably, the corporation has shown considerably less interest in reporting criticisms of that report’s methodology or the fact that its projected death rates have not transpired. Hence, in this report Bowen tells viewers that the IPC presented “overwhelming evidence” of famine.
One of the experts brought in to support that narrative at the time also appears in this Panorama report but BBC audiences are not told that Alex de Waal had already used a Qatari funded media platform to accuse Israel of “precisely engineered starvation”, “genocidal starvation” and “concealment of famine” a month prior to the appearance of the IPC report or that his organisation had been “a leader of the “starvation as a weapon” narrative against Israel” since the beginning of the war.
Having promoted UN denials concerning the theft of aid by Hamas (despite evidence to the contrary, the fact that the UN does not supply or record all the aid entering the territory and has itself admitted that the vast majority of the aid it does provide is “intercepted” before reaching recipients), Bowen turns to the topic of the GHF distribution sites. His claim that since September 12th aid only enters the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing is inaccurate – aid also enters via the 147 (Kissufim) crossing. Hamas’ prevention of the opening of a new humanitarian route just two days before Bowen’s report was aired of course does not get a mention.
Using a narrative frequently seen in BBC content, Bowen tells viewers that “the UN and its partners used to distribute humanitarian assistance at 400 sites across Gaza” but fails to clarify that was before the war began nearly two years ago. He goes on to state that those “400 sites” have “been largely replaced” by four GHF sites but fails to note that the GHF programme is by no means the sole route via which civilians in the Gaza Strip have been receiving humanitarian aid.
Using an actor’s voice, Bowen goes on to present an interview with a person presented as “an IDF soldier” called “Michael”. Viewers of the filmed version are not told that – as Bowen states in his written report – the BBC made contact with that individual through a political NGO.
“He came forward through the Israeli group, Breaking the Silence, which opposes the occupation of Palestinian territory and supports IDF soldiers who want to talk about their experiences enforcing it.”
Alternative viewpoints and experiences reported by IDF reservists of course have no place in Jeremy Bowen’s reporting.
The filmed version of the BBC’s report presents a counter supposedly showing the cumulative number of deaths at GHF sites by date, starting on May 28th:
While the accompanying map shows 17 deaths on May 30th, the counter claims 26.
According to a report from the Turkish state media outlet Anadolu, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry had stated on May 31st that a total of 17 people had been killed at GHF sites up to and including May 30th.
By the time the counter gets to June 1st, 52 deaths are reported. The BBC does not tell viewers whether or not that includes the numbers it varyingly reported on that day as being between 15 and 31 in its generous coverage of an incident that did not take place.
As readers may recall, the BBC has used information provided by the US based organisation called ACLED in the past, including in some dubious reporting on the war with Hizballah. This report also relies on data provided by that source, with Bowen telling viewers that “Since the GHF began its operations, at least 1,300 Palestinians have been killed at or around its sites. Mostly, according to ACLED data, by IDF fire.”. Notably, he does not provide any evidence to support that latter claim.
ACLED’s own report released on September 17th similarly states:
“According to ACLED data, more than 1,300 Palestinians were reportedly killed while seeking aid between late May and 12 September at or around GHF centers — the majority by IDF fire (see map below).”
However the key to that map – which its title states shows “lethal violence at and around aid distribution centers and routes” – also lists three other categories of “armed actor involved” besides the IDF – “unidentified Palestinian gunmen”, “Hamas” and “contested actor”. Referencing an NPR report from July, the ACLED report goes on to state: [emphasis added]
“Eyewitnesses on the ground report that individual Hamas members may also have been among those collecting aid for their families.”
That writer of that NPR report actually says:
“But at the GHF site, I saw people I am certain were Hamas members, based on their dress, taking food for their families.”
The NPR journalist goes on to note the injury and killings of Palestinian GHF workers and others by Hamas:
“GHF went on to say that Hamas militants have killed and threatened Palestinians working with the group. Hamas militants have also killed and wounded Palestinians en route to get food at their sites, GHF said in the email to NPR.
GHF says two private U.S. contractors working at another one of its food distribution sites were injured Saturday when two people threw grenades at them. […]
Leaving the site, we were walking in the street when we were stopped by four masked thieves holding big knives. They told us we had two options: give them half of our loot, or we would be harmed.”
Jeremy Bowen, however, has nothing to tell BBC audiences about such incidents involving Hamas or other parties. Neither does he clarify that the ACLED data includes incidents that did not take place at the GHF sites themselves, but on the routes leading to them or at other locations.
Instead, Bowen promotes a third-hand account from a doctor who spent time volunteering miles away at the Hamas exploited Nasser hospital who says that “the local people” told him that “GHF security guards or the IDF personnel is shooting directly at the crowds”.
In his written report Bowen tells readers that:
“The data on the number of deaths at GHF sites comes from a body called Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED). It collects and analyses data from warzones and is funded, among others, by the United Nations, the European Union, the US and European countries including the UK.
ACLED’s data shows that since the GHF began its operations, at least 1,300 Palestinians have been killed at, or around, its sites, mostly by IDF fire. Across Gaza, Palestinians were being killed seeking aid in the year before GHF arrived at an average rate of 30 per month. Since its sites opened, that has risen to 500.”
The BBC has nothing to tell its audiences about ACLED’s methodology, which is predominantly based on casualty figures provided by the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health and includes a very specific definition of who can be defined as ‘militants’. The Hamas ministry of health figures deliberately do not distinguish between civilians and combatants and also include deaths from causes not related to the war.
ACLED’s explanation for its reliance on Hamas ministry of health supplied figures reads as follows:
“Regional experts, international human rights organizations, and journalists have regarded the MOH as a reliable source on civilian fatality counts in Gaza.”
ACLED references two media reports to support that statement – one from the Guardian which relies on claims made by a representative of CAIR and a representative of Human Rights Watch and the other from AP which cites the Hamas health ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qudra.
Having repeatedly promoted the narrative of ‘war crimes’, Bowen’s filmed report goes on to present a section relating to recent IDF operations in Gaza City which, quoting the UK government, are portrayed as “utterly reckless and appalling”. Despite including footage filmed at Shifa hospital, Bowen has nothing to tell BBC audiences about Hamas’ long-known and ongoing exploitation of that medical facility for military purposes.
Bowen goes on to note the civilians fleeing the fighting in Gaza City but of course fails to inform BBC audiences of either Hamas’ attempts to prevent them from doing so or of the requests of Hamas officials to evacuate their families and themselves.
The final minutes of Bowen’s report include further promotion of the ‘genocide’ narrative with which it began, along with a resident of the territory from which Hamas and other terrorist organisations launched their murderous invasion of Israel nearly two years ago claiming that “in Gaza we are peaceful people”.
Bowen closes by once again invoking the highly problematic IPC report from August claiming famine in parts of the Gaza Strip, but again without any mention of the fact that its predictions have, fortunately, not materialised.
Jeremy Bowen was already promoting the narrative that Israel “is using starvation as a weapon of war” eighteen months ago. In early 2024 he began promoting the false claim that the ICJ had ruled that Israel faces “plausible” allegations that it is committing the crime of genocide, with two of his reports having had to be corrected. Bowen has also promoted the ‘war crimes’ narrative and, as noted above, he also participated in the BBC’s chosen framing of GHF operations using an obviously insufficiently vetted ‘whistleblower’.
It therefore does not come as much of a surprise to find the senior BBC journalist, who was not “particularly bothered” about having provided BBC audiences with false information just ten days into the war, exploiting the opportunity to once again promote his chosen narratives in this supposed ‘documentary’. The provision of accurate and impartial news is clearly nowhere near the top of the BBC international editor’s list of priorities but manipulating public opinion obviously is.
Bowen is a Hamas propogandist, just like his employers – they always distort fact by missing out vital information.
THe BBC has been practicing this deception for over 40 years in favour of the Arabs.