On November 9th the BBC News website published a report which is currently headlined “Israel receives body of soldier killed in 2014 in Gaza”. All four versions of that article by George Wright and Andre Rhoden-Paul include the following paragraph:
“Lt Goldin, from Kfar Saba, is the only deceased hostage whose remains were being held in Gaza before the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the latest war.”
That statement is inaccurate. The remains of Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, who was killed and captured by Hamas in July 2014, were also held in Gaza until January 2025 when his body was recovered by the IDF – as was reported by the BBC at the time.
CAMERA UK has requested a correction.
Wright and Rhoden-Paul also tell readers that:
“He [Hadar Goldin] was killed in combat on 1 August 2014, not long after the start of a ceasefire in that year’s war between Israel and Hamas. He was among a group of Israeli soldiers patrolling an agricultural area near Rafah in southern Gaza when they were attacked by a group of Hamas fighters.
The Israeli military determined that Lt Goldin was killed along with two other soldiers in a firefight, and that his body was then dragged into an underground tunnel by the Hamas fighters.
The Israeli military unleashed massive firepower to try to prevent Hamas from taking Lt Goldin hostage. Scores of Palestinian civilians were killed in the bombardment of Rafah, which continued for four days, including after Lt Goldin was declared dead.”
That account does not adequately clarify that the Hamas attack on Lt Goldin’s unit was a breach of the humanitarian ceasefire that had come into effect a little earlier and fails to mention that two barrages of rockets were later launched into Israel by terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
“At 9:05 a.m. on August 1, 2014, just over an hour after the start of a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in the war brokered by the UN and the US, Hamas gunmen emerged from a tunnel in the southeastern part of Rafah and attacked troops of the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, killing three soldiers, including Goldin — whose body was dragged by the terror operatives back into their tunnel.
The following day, the IDF announced that Goldin had been killed in combat before his abduction, and he was posthumously promoted to the rank of lieutenant.”
Any readers searching the BBC’s online archive of “permanent public record” for further information about that August 2014 incident may end up rather bewildered. As CAMERA UK documented at the time, the BBC provided a confused timeline of events, inaccurately claimed that Hamas “militants” had entered Israeli territory and promoted obviously unverified Hamas denials of the ceasefire breach and abduction of Lt Goldin’s body.
“Friday 1st August: Israel and Hamas agree 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire from 05:00 GMT, but Israel resumes operations within hours accusing Hamas of violations.” [source]
“The violence ended a 72-hour ceasefire – each side accusing the other of breaking the truce.” [source]
“But Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoun [sic] said: “The Israelis are the ones who breached the ceasefire, and the Palestinian resistance acted in a way that ensures its right of self-defence.”
Another Hamas official said the announcement of the soldier’s capture was “a justification for Israel retreating from the truth and a cover-up for massacres”.” [source]
“A 72-hour ceasefire had been agreed, starting from Friday morning, but collapsed hours later.
Hamas accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had been forced to respond to militant rocket fire.” [source]
“But in a statement released early on Saturday, the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, said it had “no information on this soldier”.
It said it lost contact with a group of fighters in the area where the IDF soldier went missing, saying: “We believe they were all killed in the [Israeli] bombardment.
“Assuming that they managed to seize the soldier during combat, we assess that he was also killed in the incident.”” [source]
BBC PRESENTATION OF THE AUGUST 1ST CEASEFIRE BREAKDOWN – PART ONE: BBC NEWS WEBSITE
BBC PRESENTATION OF THE AUGUST 1ST CEASEFIRE BREAKDOWN – PART TWO: BBC TELEVISION NEWS
In the years that followed, the BBC produced very little follow-up reporting on the topic of Hamas’ holding of the remains of Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin and its demands for the release of convicted terrorists in exchange for their bodies.
This story once again provides an example of how the BBC policy of not correcting or updating archived online content all too often leads to inaccurate information being presented in its “permanent public record”.
Wright and Rhoden-Paul’s report also tells BBC audiences that:
“On Saturday in Gaza, two Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire. The Israeli military said two people had crossed the yellow line marking the line of Israeli control and posed an “immediate threat”.
Separately, one Palestinian was shot dead in Gaza by Israeli fire and another was wounded on Saturday, local medics and the Israeli military said.
Gazan medical officials said the person who died was killed by Israeli fire east of Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Civil defence rescuers said the injured Palestinian was wounded by Israeli gunfire in Khan Younis.”
In fact, the IDF’s announcement (and related media reports) concerning those incidents clearly states that the two casualties were terrorists.
Apparently the BBC considered it appropriate to misrepresent the IDF’s statement by erasing the word terrorists.
Update:
On November 13th we received a response to our complaint from the BBC which includes the following:
“You wrote to us about a line in this report which says:
Lt Goldin, from Kfar Saba, is the only deceased hostage whose remains were being held in Gaza before the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the latest war.
You point out that the remains of Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul had also been also held in Gaza from before 7 October 2023 until January 2025, when his body was recovered by the IDF.
On this basis, you say that the sentence in our report is “inaccurate”, and you asked us to “correct accordingly”.
We would say that, on the contrary, this sentence is accurate because it said that Lt Goldin IS the only deceased hostage whose remains were being held in Gaza from before 7 October.
Staff Sgt Shaul’s remains HAD BEEN held in Gaza but have since been returned.
We would therefore say that no correction is needed.
However, to make the point of this sentence absolutely clear, we have reworded it to say:
Lt Goldin, from Kfar Saba, is the only remaining deceased hostage whose body was still being held in Gaza before the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the latest war.”
The BBC and others including AP, Reuters and maybe the worst of all AFP which is thoroughly embedded in Hamas all refer to Hamas terrorists who get themselves killed as ‘Israelis shoot dead (say) 5 ‘Palestinians’ (not even Hamas ‘operatives’ – what do they operate???