On the evening of December 3rd the BBC News website published a report credited to Rushdi Abualouf and Patrick Jackson titled “Five killed in Israeli air strikes on tents near Khan Younis, medics say”.
The first five of that report’s twelve paragraphs promote a version of events credited to “medics” and “rescue workers”.
“Five Palestinians were killed, including two children, and several wounded when Israeli aircraft struck tents for displaced people west of Khan Younis, according to medics at the Kuwait Field Hospital.
The strikes hit Gaza’s coastal al-Mawasi area.
Medical teams said the dead were two women aged 46 and 30, a 36-year-old man, and two boys, aged eight and 10.
Some 32 injured people were treated in hospital, the medics said.
Rescue workers told the BBC they recovered the bodies from al-Najaat camp, a cluster of tents that has housed hundreds of displaced people in recent months.”
According to an AFP report on the same story, the “rescue workers” were in fact the Gaza civil defence spokesman – and Hamas operative – Mahmoud Bassal.
Two later paragraphs in the BBC’s report promote the accounts of “witnesses” and a statement from the Hamas terrorist organisation.
“Witnesses said the initial strike had targeted a tent inside the al-Mawasi displacement area, followed by blasts near the Kuwait hospital, prompting panic among families sheltering nearby.
Hamas called Israel’s action barbaric, indiscriminate and a violation of the ceasefire which began on 10 October.”
Abualouf and Jackson chose to promote that Hamas claim of an “indiscriminate” attack despite the fact that it was already known that the target of the strike was a Hamas operative.
Information concerning the events that prompted that strike only appears in paragraphs six and seven of the BBC’s report.
“The Israeli military said it had “struck a Hamas terrorist” after five of its soldiers were wounded earlier on Wednesday.
“The Hamas terrorist organization carried out a blatant violation of the ceasefire agreement, during which terrorists attacked IDF troops deployed in the Rafah area,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.”
No further details of that attack are provided and the BBC does not clarify that it took place in the part of the Gaza Strip held by Israel under the terms of the ceasefire agreement. As reported by the Times of Israel:
“According to the IDF, troops of the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit had encountered several terror operatives who emerged from a tunnel in eastern Rafah — an Israeli-held area in the Strip’s south, where dozens of Hamas fighters are believed to be trapped underground. A gunfight then erupted.
The army said a soldier with Golani’s reconnaissance unit was seriously injured in the clash, while three other soldiers — including two from Golani and a non-commissioned officer in the Gaza Division — were moderately injured. A fifth soldier was lightly hurt. […]
According to a preliminary military investigation, the incident began as the Golani soldiers spotted a suspicious figure covered in a blanket entering a building. A Namer armored personnel carrier (APC) with troops was dispatched to the area to aid in the search for the suspected terror operative.
The soldiers in the APC then spotted two operatives who emerged from a tunnel, and the troops opened fire on them. As the troops fired, one of the operatives launched an RPG missile at the APC, wounding the five soldiers.”
Nevertheless, Abualouf and Jackson chose to promote false equivalence by amplifying the false Hamas claim that it was “Israel’s action” that was “a violation of the ceasefire”.
Related Articles:
FROZEN IN TIME: THE BBC’S CONTRASTING PORTRAYALS OF CASUALTIES
