Documents relating to the November 2025 appearance of BBC executives before the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee include the letter sent to the BBC Board by the former advisor to the corporation’s editorial standards committee, Michael Prescott.
Among the many issues raised in that letter is the following reference to an edition of the BBC Two programme ‘Newsnight’ aired in May 2025.
The details of that latter story can be found here:
THE BBC DISPLAYS ITS STARVATION CONFORMATION BIAS YET AGAIN
The Guardian report to which Mr Prescott refers was published on May 12th 2025 and it links to a BBC report by Fergal Keane which had appeared on May 6th under the headline “‘No food when I gave birth’: Malnutrition rises in Gaza as Israeli blockade enters third month”.
In that BBC report, readers were told that: [emphasis added]
“A local BBC colleague filmed the unmistakable signs of advanced malnutrition on Siwar’s body. The head that seems far too big for her frame. The stick-like arms and legs. The ribs pressing against her skin when she tries to cry. The large brown eyes that follow her mother’s every small movement.”
A photo caption promotes the same messaging:
Keane produced two additional reports on the same story after the Guardian report was published.
May 13: “Gaza parents desperate as children face starvation under Israeli blockade”. Credited to Fergal Keane.
May 14: “Scared and malnourished – footage from Gaza shows plight of children and aftermath of Israeli strike”. Title later changed. Credited to Fergal Keane in Amman, “[w]ith additional reporting by Alice Doyard, Suha Kawar and Nik Millard”.
Readers of the May 14th report were told that:
“In the past few days Siwar has developed a skin infection. Sores have appeared on her hands. She also has a severe gastrointestinal condition. The battle is to keep nourishment inside her. Her immune system is fighting the deprivation caused by the Israeli blockade.
The baby’s cry is weak, yet it is full of urgency, the sound of a life struggling for its survival. Siwar can only drink a special milk formula due to severe allergies.
However, as was noted here at the time:
“Keane refrains from providing any actual professional medical diagnosis of the baby’s condition in all three of his reports, meaning that it is not clear from his reporting whether her physical condition as he describes it is in fact attributable solely to “advanced malnutrition” or whether it involves some underlying medical condition.”
MORE GAZA NARRATIVE PROMOTION FROM THE BBC’S FERGAL KEANE
On May 26th 2025 the BBC News website published another report by Keane under the headline “‘Situation is dire’ – BBC returns to Gaza baby left hungry by Israeli blockade” which opens with a portrayal of the activities of a “local cameraman” in his typically dramatic style before going on to link to his May 6th report.
“This morning he [the cameraman] is setting out to find Siwar Ashour, a five-month-old girl whose emaciated frame and exhausted cry at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis affected him so much, when he was filming there earlier this month, that he wrote to tell me something had broken inside him.
She weighed just over 2kg (4lb 6oz). A baby girl of five months should be about 6kg or over. […]
Siwar is quiet, held secure by the protective presence of the two women. The baby cannot absorb regular milk formula because of a severe allergic reaction. Under the conditions of war and an Israeli blockade on aid arrivals, there is a severe shortage of the formula she needs.”
Once again, any mention of the baby’s congenital oesophageal disorder reported two weeks earlier by the Guardian is absent from Keane’s article.
On June 12th 2025 the BBC News website published yet another report about the same baby by Keane and his team. Titled “A frail cry and relief: Malnourished baby Siwar evacuated from Gaza”, that report tells BBC audiences that:
“In person six-month-old Siwar is tinier than any visual image can convey. She weighs 3kg (6.6lb) but should be twice that. Her mother, Najwa, 23, smiled as she described her feelings on crossing into Jordan on Wednesday, when her daughter was evacuated from Gaza with other Palestinian children.”
Again linking to his May 6th report, Keane goes on:
“Back in April when the BBC first filmed Siwar at Nasser hospital in southern Gaza, her mother and doctor said she was suffering from malnutrition because the special milk formula she needed could not be found in sufficient quantity. Her body was emaciated. Najwa said then she could not breastfeed Siwar because she herself was suffering from malnutrition.”
In early December Palestinian activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib reported that Hamas had hoarded tons of baby formula and nutritional supplements in a warehouse belonging to its ministry of health. The BBC showed no interest whatsoever in that story, with no “local cameraman” sent to verify the allegation.
Less than two weeks later, on December 22nd 2025, the BBC News website published a sixth report by Keane and his team about Siwar Ashour titled “Baby followed by BBC back in Gaza hospital after treatment abroad”. The story was also promoted in audio form the next day.
“A one-year-old Palestinian girl evacuated from Gaza with severe nutritional problems is back in hospital in the
territory after being returned there from Jordan. Siwar Ashour, whose story the BBC has followed for several months, was repatriated to Gaza on 3 December after completing her medical treatment in Amman.
She’d spent six months in hospital there under a medical evacuation programme run by the Kingdom of Jordan. Her grandmother, Sahar Ashour, said she became ill three days after coming back. […]
Siwar is being treated at al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip where Dr Khalil al-Daqran told the BBC she is “receiving the necessary treatment, but the situation is still bad for her”. The doctor said Siwar was suffering from a gastro-intestinal infection. She has an immune system deficiency which makes it hard for her to fight bacteria. She also struggles to absorb nutrition, meaning she requires specialised baby formula.”
Although readers are once again not told anything about the child’s congenital condition, they do learn that the BBC takes credit for her six-month stay in Jordan:
“Siwar was evacuated to Jordan in June after the BBC reported on her case and raised it directly with the Jordanian authorities.”
In other words, the BBC’s repeated focus on this story was a component of active intervention on its part.
Only in paragraph ten do readers learn that Jordan’s policy is to return medical evacuees to a war zone once their treatment has been completed.
“Jordan’s Minister of Communications, Dr Mohammed al-Momani, told us that Siwar was among 45 children returned to Gaza after completing their treatment. Under the evacuation scheme all patients are sent back after medical attention.
I put it to Dr al-Momani that people might find it hard to accept that a child in such a vulnerable condition could be sent back to Gaza in the current conditions.
“No patient is sent back before they finish their medical treatment… the first reason [why they are returned] is that this will allow us to bring more patients from Gaza. We cannot take all of them at once. We have to take them in batches. So far we have taken 18 batches.
“The second reason is that we don’t want to contribute in any shape or form to the displacement of Palestinians from their land and all patients are told… after treatment you are sent back so other patients and other children can be brought in for treatment.””
Despite the fact that seven times more aid is now entering the Gaza Strip than was the case before the war, Keane tells BBC audiences that:
“The specialised formula milk Siwar needs was either not available or in very short supply during the ongoing conflict. In March, Israel imposed a total blockade on aid into Gaza that was lifted partially after 11 weeks. Since the ceasefire there has been a surge in aid deliveries, although the UN and aid agencies say not enough humanitarian supplies are flowing.”
Keane later reports that the family has been supplied with a type of formula given to infants with gastro-intestinal conditions and food allergies.
“Siwar’s family has been given Neocate milk formula since returning to Gaza. There have also been donations of money, including funds raised from online appeals.”
Prior to that however, he promotes the following claim:
“The Jordanian authorities gave Siwar’s family a supply of 12 cans of the hypoallergenic Neocate formula on their departure for Gaza. However her mother Najwa told us that Israeli officials confiscated much of what they’d been given – nine of their 12 cans were taken.
“They told us, ‘It is forbidden to take more than these cans,'” said Siwar’s mother, Najwa Ashour. “Even though it is therapeutic milk and they said that treatment is allowed, yet they took them.” […]
I asked the Israeli government why the milk formula and clothing were confiscated? They replied that limits were placed on what could be taken back for “security considerations.”
They said only minimal luggage was allowed and this had been conveyed to the Jordanian authorities and the returning families. “In cases where the luggage exceeded the approved scope, its entry was denied.””
As can be seen, the ‘Newsnight’ programme aired in May 2025 was far from the only item of BBC content that failed to clarify Siwar Ashour’s underlying medical condition to BBC audiences. Neither is this by any means the sole case in which the BBC advanced its chosen malnutrition, starvation and famine narratives using images of children and adults with underlying medical conditions:
BBC WORLD SERVICE USES TWO-MONTH-OLD PHOTO TO PROMOTE A NARRATIVE
BBC AGAIN FAILS TO PROVIDE CONTEXT TO ‘STARVING GAZA BABY’ PHOTOS
THE BBC DISPLAYS ITS STARVATION CONFORMATION BIAS YET AGAIN
ANOTHER CHAPTER IN THE BBC CAMPAIGN TO PROMOTE A CHOSEN NARRATIVE
The answer to Mr Prescott’s query regarding BBC reports which fail to tell audiences “that the person highlighted has pre-existing medical conditions that might explain their emaciated appearance” lies in the BBC’s prioritisation of the promotion of politically motivated narratives over accurate and impartial reporting.
