On the evening of January 29th the BBC News website published a report credited to the corporation’s West of England correspondent Dan Johnson who, according to the by-line, appears to be visiting Jerusalem.
Titled “Israeli media cite official accepting Hamas figure of 70,000 war dead”, that report is based on an article published earlier the same day by Haaretz and one published at another Israeli media outlet. The version of Johnson’s report currently appearing online includes an amendment to its closing paragraphs which was added some four hours after its initial publication:
“Following the latest Israeli media reports, a military official said the details published did not reflect official IDF data.
“Any publication or report on this matter will be released through official and orderly channels,” the IDF official said.”
That “military official” is the IDF’s international spokesperson.
Johnson nevertheless begins by telling BBC audiences that:
“Israeli media report that a senior security source has said the military accepts that more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war in Gaza.
Israel has previously cast doubt on figures from the Hamas-run health ministry.
But their figures have been deemed reliable by the UN and other human rights groups and widely cited by international media.
The war began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, when about 1,200 other people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.” [emphasis added]
Remarkably, Johnson refrains from informing his readers that those “other people” were mostly civilian Israelis and foreign nationals.
The fact that data issued by the terrorist organisation that began the war has been uncritically quoted and promoted by the echo chamber comprising UN agencies, “human rights groups” and “international media” does not of course mean that it is accurate.
As readers may recall, the BBC chose to uncritically promote Hamas-supplied casualty figures early in the war that began in October 2023, just as it had done in previous rounds of conflict.
BBC’S FACT CHECK DEPARTMENT ROOTS FOR HAMAS CASUALTY FIGURES
Moreover, even after analysts had raised issues and the Hamas-run health ministry had revised its methodology, the BBC continued to promote the false claim that 70% of the casualties were women and children.
LOOKING BEHIND THE BBC’S ‘70% WOMEN AND CHILDREN’ MANTRA
After the head of statistics at the Hamas-run health ministry admitted in April 2025 that its data included natural deaths and false reports, the BBC continued to tell its audiences that “[t]he figures are cited with attribution, by UN agencies and widely in the media.”.
BBC NEWS DEFENDS HAMAS CASUALTY FIGURES ONCE AGAIN
The controversy surrounding Hamas-supplied casualty figures is in fact less about the total numbers and more about their breakdown.
Hamas has for years employed a policy of deliberately failing to distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties for propaganda purposes. The data periodically published by Hamas – which it describes as “statistics of the Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip” – has included deaths caused by the 10 to 20% of missiles fired by terrorist groups that fall short and deaths caused by the terrorists’ practice of booby-trapping buildings and roads, as well as deaths that are the result of civilians being executed by Hamas.
However, since the war began, the BBC has shown little interest in explaining to its audiences that the Hamas-supplied figures it quotes and promotes on a near-daily basis include deaths that are not the result of Israel’s “military campaign in Gaza”. Johnson’s report is no exception, with readers told that:
“Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 71,660 people have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It says at least 492 Palestinians have been killed since a ceasefire began on 10 October 2025. Four Israeli soldiers have also been killed.
Israel has always disputed the Hamas figures and said before last year’s ceasefire it had killed 1,600 fighters since 7 October 2023 and another 22,000 combatants in the war.” [emphasis added]
In fact, the number 1,600 relates to terrorists killed inside Israel during the October 7 invasion and the estimated number of combatants killed altogether is around 25,000.
The main point of Johnson’s report is laid out in the following paragraph:
“Now a senior military source has indicated to Israeli journalists, including those from Haaretz and the Times of Israel, that the total number given by the Hamas health ministry is largely accurate, even though they have not been able to break down how many were combatants and how many died as a direct result of the fighting.”
Notwithstanding the IDF statement regarding the failure of those media reports to reflect official IDF data, what is most notable about Johnson’s reporting is that it once again highlights the reality that the BBC long since absolved itself from fact checking claims concerning the casualty figures that it uncritically quotes and promotes and instead justifies that policy with the excuse that the UN considers them “reliable”.
That lack of interest in issues including civilian/combatant ratios, the number of war-related deaths versus those from natural causes and the serially avoided topic of deaths caused by the actions of Palestinian terror groups means that BBC audiences are denied the information needed to reach their own conclusions regarding narratives such as those concerning “proportionality” and “genocide” that are fuelled by the context-free presentation of unconfirmed numbers provided by a terrorist organisation.
