On the morning of February 26th the BBC News website published a report by Joel Gunter headlined “Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian boy and stood around as he bled to death, video shows”.
That report was also translated into several other languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Polish and Turkish. Additional efforts to promote the report included posting versions of it on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Gunter begins his report by telling BBC audiences that: [emphasis added]
“Last November, a 14-year-old Palestinian boy named Jad Jadallah was shot at close range by Israeli soldiers in a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.
As Jad lay collapsed in an alley, the soldiers created a cordon around him and blocked two Palestinian ambulances from reaching him.
According to video footage and eyewitness testimony, the soldiers – 14 in total – then stood around Jad casually for at least 45 minutes while he bled from one or more gunshot wounds.
All Israeli soldiers receive training in trauma treatment, and any Israeli combat unit should contain a specifically trained medic, but none of the soldiers appeared to give Jad life-saving medical aid. At points, they appeared to ignore repeated attempts from Jad to get their attention.”
He then states:
“The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) told the BBC that soldiers had provided “initial medical treatment”, but a spokesperson refused to give any details about the nature or timing of the treatment.
The IDF has also accused Jad of throwing a rock, which, under their rules of engagement, can permit soldiers to use lethal force.”
The incident that is the topic of Gunter’s report took place on November 16th 2025 in the al-Faraa refugee camp near Tubas. Gunter’s account includes further promotion of the alleged failure to provide medical treatment.
“But two things stand out about this case. The first is that Jad lay on the ground untreated for so long, with so many soldiers around him, while he died. The second is the emergence of a significant amount of video footage of the incident, which the BBC has verified.”
That video footage – an edited version of which is included in the BBC’s report – had actually ‘emerged’ in a report by Amira Hass that had been published by Haaretz eighteen days earliern- a fact which Gunter fails to mention. As was reported by the Times of Israel on February 8th:
“The outlet cites witnesses as saying that he was shot, at the latest, at 4:45 p.m. that day, and was only attended to by military medics at 5:28 p.m. His body was taken away from the scene at 5:35 p.m. by the army, Haaretz reports.
Responding to Haaretz, the IDF says that the claim “that the force did not provide medical treatment is false.”
“A terrorist was identified throwing a concrete block at the force, posing an immediate threat. The force fired at the terrorist to neutralize the threat, as a result of which he was wounded. After verifying that the terrorist was not carrying an explosive device on his body, the force provided him with initial medical treatment,” the military says.”
Gunter’s report includes a similar statement:
“The IDF told the BBC that it had provided “initial medical treatment” to Jad after verifying that he was not wearing a hidden explosive device. Footage of the incident, as well as separate close-up CCTV footage of Jad leaving home beforehand, shows that he was wearing only a T-shirt and jeans.
Asked to explain what wounds Jad sustained and what medical treatment was provided, the IDF declined to answer.”
Gunter tells his readers that:
“The soldiers eventually loaded Jad into the back of an Israeli military vehicle, but at some point, either before or after they did, he died.”
The Haaretz video states – and shows – that what Gunter describes as a “military vehicle” was a military ambulance.
Following the publication of Gunter’s report, the spokesperson at the Israeli embassy in London reaffirmed that medical treatment had been provided.
In short, Joel Gunter used edited video footage that was already in the public domain to promote a narrative according to which Israeli soldiers “stood around”, despite already having been informed otherwise by official sources.
Readers may recall that this is not the first time that Gunter has used accounts provided by family members and the political NGO B’tselem to advance his chosen framing of an incident involving a minor. As was the case then, he once again fails to clarify to BBC audiences that those he describes in this report as “children…killed by Israeli forces” include individuals involved in terror or violent rioting.
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