On the afternoon of April 9th the BBC New website published a report by David Gritten under the headline “Al Jazeera condemns killing of journalist in Israeli strike in Gaza” which begins by telling readers that:
“Al Jazeera has condemned the killing of one of its Palestinian journalists in an Israeli strike in the Gaza Strip, describing it as a “deliberate and targeted crime”.”
Later in his report, Gritten cites a statement issued by that Qatari outlet:
“A statement issued by Al Jazeera on Wednesday said it “strongly condemns the heinous crime of targeting and killing” its correspondent.
“This constitutes a new and flagrant violation of all international laws and norms, and reflects a continued systematic policy of targeting journalists and silencing the voice of truth,” it added.
Al Jazeera also reaffirmed that it would pursue “all necessary legal action to prosecute those responsible for the killing of its correspondents and staff in Gaza, and to seek justice for them and for all fallen journalists”.”
Given that the BBC chose to uncritically promote that Al Jazeera statement and its claim of a “policy of targeting journalists”, one would expect readers to have been provided with at least some of the available information on the obviously relevant topic of that media organisation’s record, including its documented cooperation with Hamas. Such background would also have helped BBC audiences put the following statement from Gritten into its appropriate context: [emphasis added]
“He is the 11th Al Jazeera journalist to be killed since the start of the war in Gaza, where a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been in place for six months.”
Gritten however failed to provide his readers with any information concerning terror operatives who doubled as Al Jazeera journalists, including the son of one of the participants in a “solidarity vigil” held at Al Jazeera’s Qatar headquarters on the day that his report was published.
Readers of Gritten’s report are told that:
“The Israeli military alleged that Wishah was a “Hamas terrorist” and said it carried out the strike because he posed a threat to its forces in the area.
There was no immediate response from Al Jazeera, but both the network and Hamas have previously denied that Wishah was affiliated with the armed group.”
And:
“On Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that its troops targeted Wishah and accused him of being “a key terrorist in Hamas’ rocket and weapons production headquarters” who “operated under the guise of an Al Jazeera journalist”. It said he was “actively involved in planning attacks against IDF troops, and posed a concrete threat to forces in the area”.
As evidence, it cited a February 2024 post from the IDF’s Arabic spokesman, which included photos that he said showed Wishah operating weapons, including a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. He said the photos were found on a computer that troops confiscated in Gaza.
At the time, Al Jazeera and Hamas denied Wishah had any affiliation with the group.”
Notably, readers of this report are not shown those photographs found on a laptop belonging to Wishah (also Washah) that were published in early 2024 (and which the BBC clearly has not bothered to investigate in the two years since) or any of the additional available photographs of him posing with Hamas leaders.
Neither are readers told anything about Wishah’s alleged intimidation of journalists critical of Hamas in the Gaza Strip or the incitement – “Khaybar, Khaybar O Jews, the 7th of October will return” – chanted at his funeral.
In line with standard practice in BBC reporting on such stories, Gritten quotes the organisations Reporters Without Borders and – more extensively – the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). As was the case in reports last month, Gritten misleads BBC audiences by stating that Al Manar is “affiliated” with Hizballah rather than owned by that terrorist organisation and designated by the United States.
“The CPJ also said on Wednesday that two other journalists had been killed in separate Israeli strikes in Lebanon this week – Ghada Dayekh, a presenter with privately-owned radio station Sawt al-Farah, and Suzan Khalil, a reporter and presenter on Al-Manar TV, which is affiliated with the armed group Hezbollah.
Dayekh was killed on Tuesday when her apartment building in the southern city of Tyre was struck, completely destroying it, according to Sawt al-Farah’s director.
Khalil was killed in a strike in the northern village of Kfoun on Wednesday, Lebanese media cited Hezbollah’s media office as saying.”
According to the CPJ, Dayekh was killed on Wednesday, April 8th rather than “on Tuesday” as claimed by Gritten and – like Khalil – that organisation has not yet determined that her death was “work-related”. Given that local media reported at least five additional deaths in Kfoun (also Kayfoun) on the same day, one would have expected the BBC to investigate whether or not those two journalists happened to be in the vicinity of military targets before promoting claims of “attacks” on “civilian journalists” – but that was not the case:
“The CPJ said a total of 260 journalists had been killed across the Middle East since the start of the Gaza conflict. At least seven of them have been killed in Lebanon, where Israeli forces are fighting Hezbollah, since the start of the US and Israel’s war with Iran on 28 February.
“Journalists are being killed at a pace and scale that should shock the conscience of the world. These are not isolated tragedies; they reflect a systematic failure to uphold the most basic protections owed to civilian journalists under international law,” said the CPJ’s regional director, Sara Qudah, in a statement.
“CPJ has consistently warned that without accountability, these attacks will continue to escalate, emboldening those who seek to silence independent reporting through violence.””
Gritten’s report – which ironically is tagged “press freedom” – once again demonstrates that the BBC chooses to ignore the issue of the abuse of journalism by terrorist organisations including Hamas and Hizballah, not least by failing to adequately report on the collaboration between such organisations and media outlets such as Al Jazeera. As a result of that policy, at least one BBC employee has publicly promoted the myth of “journacide”.
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