Back in August we documented the receipt of a reply to a complaint that had been submitted to the BBC over twenty months earlier:
TWENTY MONTHS ON, THE BBC REPLIES TO A COMPLAINT ABOUT ITS AL AHLI COVERAGE
As we noted at the time:
“In other words, this twenty-month late response from the BBC does not address the fact that BBC Verify quoted and promoted a report co-produced by a political NGO with links to a terrorist organisation (which is actually called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) rather than “the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine” as claimed by the BBC) that less than three weeks before the appearance of BBC Verify’s ‘analysis’ had participated in the October 7th massacre of Israelis.
Moreover, the BBC’s response claims that is “in accordance with our Editorial Guidelines”.
CAMERA UK has submitted a Stage 1b complaint.”
On September 18th 2025, BBC Complaints rejected that Stage 1b complaint, stating:
“In articles like this, which contain several contributors, we must balance the need to provide context about those contributors with the need to provide a concise and lucid narrative for readers. We considered it would hamper the reader to provide a lot of background on all these people and institutions.
One other factor to consider is this: How much relevance does an alleged connection between al Haq and PFLP really have to the analysis that Forensic Architecture produced on the cause of the explosion in Gaza, which we mentioned in our article?”
CAMERA UK then submitted a complaint to the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) which included the following:
“Contrary to the claim in the BBC’s Stage 1b response, the failure to mention Al Haq is extremely relevant. When supposedly professional ‘analysis’ is carried out in collaboration with an interested party – i.e. a political NGO that has links to one of the terrorist organisations that started the war – BBC audiences should be provided with that information so that they can make up their own minds about the reliability of such ‘analysis’ and the potential political motivations behind it.
In general, it would be highly beneficial to the BBC’s funding public were the BBC to begin to comply with its own editorial guidelines concerning ‘contributors’ affiliations’ – especially in the case of political NGOs and their representatives – and particularly for the BBC’s fact-checking department to employ a degree of scepticism concerning claims put out by politically motivated actors presenting themselves as ‘analysts’.”
On October 29th the ECU rejected that Stage 2 complaint, with its response including the following:
“You complained the piece failed to set out what you say are the facts behind the origin of a piece of analysis it quoted, which you say was “co-produced by a political NGO with links to a terrorist organisation”. I would agree that information on the bodies responsible for analyses quoted in BBC output can be helpful to audience understanding and ensure they are not misled. I don’t, however, believe the absence of the information you cited amounted to a breach of standards. […]
The weight readers would have assigned to this analysis has to be considered accordingly, as does the risk anyone would have been “materially misled” by it – and by extension, the absence of information on those the authors of the research collaborated with. It follows the significance of the full background information you believe ought to have been included on audience understanding of events was limited.
Forensic Architecture were described as “a UK based organisation which investigates human rights abuses” and I think this was sufficient to ensure readers had a broad sense of the group and their mission. The article was about the explosion, not the background of people making the various analyses it featured, and as you know, due accuracy does not require exhaustive detail on every point. As was put to you, offering a clear account of the events an article describes may mean refraining from exploring every aspect of related matters or the background of a source. Moreover, as you will know, Israel’s claims against Al Haq have been contested, including by the UN.”
The ECU’s response links to three sources to support its argument that “Israel’s claims against Al Haq have been contested”: 2022 reports from Ha’aretz and the Guardian and a 2021 press release put out by a group of UN special rapporteurs (who are not UN staff) including Michael Lynk.
Over two years after the explosion in the Al Ahli hospital car park, the BBC has still not informed its audiences that it was caused by a shortfall rocket launched by the PIJ. Instead, it has chosen to take a stance according to which it “cannot yet establish as fact who was responsible for the blast”.
The BBC Verify report that was the subject of these three CAMERA UK complaints remains online and still promotes the Hamas-run health ministry’s false claim that “almost 500 people were killed”. As mentioned in the ECU’s response, the NGO Forensic Architecture is still described in that report as “a UK-based organisation which investigates human rights abuses” despite its having later produced a film on the topic that promotes the ‘genocide’ libel.
Forensic Architecture’s unverified claim that the explosion was caused by a “projectile…probably a rocket” […] “which it concludes came from the direction of Israel” continues to be promoted in that BBC Verify report.
As this case once again demonstrates, the BBC Complaints system – which should theoretically help reduce the amount of disinformation appearing on BBC websites as “permanent public record” – does not function in a timely or effective manner.
Over twenty years ago the BBC rushed to tell its audiences about a ‘massacre’ in Jenin which never happened. That disinformation remains online to this day with nothing to inform members of the public that claims amplified in a multitude of reports were groundless.
Coverage of the al Ahli hospital explosion – including by the ‘fact checking’ department BBC Verify – has become yet another chapter in the saga of the BBC’s failure to address the very serious issue of its own often hasty promotion of disinformation sourced from dubious and politically motivated actors and its refusal to amend online reports in order to inform audiences when facts refuting such disinformation later become known.
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EIGHTEEN MONTHS ON, THE BBC STILL WON’T REPORT WHAT HAPPENED AT AL AHLI
