On August 3rd 2024 the BBC News website published a report which includes the following:
“Meanwhile, at least 10 people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, the Hamas-run government media office has said.”
An early version of another BBC report that first appeared on the same day told readers that: [emphasis added]
“Meanwhile in Gaza, at least 17 people in a school sheltering displaced persons were killed by an Israeli strike, the Hamas-run authorities said on Saturday.
The Israeli military says the Hamama school in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood was being used as a command centre for militants. Hamas has denied it operates from civilian facilities.”
On August 4th 2024 the BBC News website published an uncredited report headlined “Casualties after third Israeli strike on school in a week” which includes the following statement:
“On Saturday [August 3rd 2024 – Ed.], officials said an air strike on Hamama School in Gaza City had killed at least 17 people.”
As was noted here at the time, the target of that strike was not “a school” or “displaced people” but a Hamas command and control centre at a site formerly known as the Hamama school.
On May 12th 2026, Hamas published an obituary for one of its commanders – Mahmoud Khalil Farhat – who was killed on that day at that inactive school.
The same BBC report dated August 4th 2024 tells readers that:
“Dozens of people have reportedly been killed in Israeli air strikes on two schools in Gaza, according to Palestinian rescuers and news outlets.
Some of those killed were displaced people sheltering at the schools, rescuers said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the strikes, saying it had targeted Hamas “command and control centres” within two schools in Gaza City.
The strikes were the third time in a week schools in Gaza have been hit by Israeli strikes.
The IDF said: “The schools were used by Hamas’s al-Furqan Battalion as a hiding place for its terrorist operatives and as command centres used to plan and execute attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel.”
Footage on social media purported to show bodies inside one of the schools as rescuers evacuated casualties, including children.
Palestinian media said at least 30 people were killed in the strikes. Mahmoud Basal, a spokesman for the Palestinian Civil Defence, said most of the dead were women and children.”
As noted here previously, the BBC’s report was not updated to inform audiences that among the Hamas terrorists hiding in the Nasr and Hassan Salama schools in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood was a prominent Hamas commander named Jaber Aziz.
On May 19th 2026, that information was confirmed by Hamas.
In March 2025 CAMERA UK documented the appearance of a mourning poster for another Hamas military operative killed in the same strike.
“As documented in a detailed thread, the person portrayed on that poster – Jihad Qazzar – had been killed on August 4th in the strikes on the Hassan Salame and Nasr schools in which 23 people were reported by Palestinian sources to have died. The analyst found that eight of those people had been described as fighters by their relatives and that some of the civilians killed were family members of a terrorist present at the location.”
Additional announcements recently released by terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip show that a strike on an inactive school in Jabalia on October 13th 2024 killed a Hamas commander and a strike on a non-functional UNRWA school in the Shati camp six days later killed a Palestinian Islamic Jihad platoon commander and several police officers. Another strike on a former school in eastern Gaza City in November 2024 killed a Hamas operative posing as a journalist who was the son of a past Hamas contributor to BBC content.
In 2024, the BBC News website published multiple reports relating to what were described as Israeli attacks on schools in the Gaza Strip. Some of those non-functioning schools had been run by UNRWA while others were administered by different bodies.
Many of those reports promote Hamas denials of the use of those facilities as command centres – for example:
“Since the beginning of July, more than a dozen schools have been hit, according to unofficial tallies, including at one point four in four days.
Each time, in nearly identical statements, the IDF says Hamas is hiding in the schools and using them as command centres to plan and carry out attacks, something Hamas denies.
Whatever the case, these buildings are where many displaced Gazans have sought shelter, and they are paying the highest price.”
As in its coverage of journalists killed during the war that began as a result of the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7th 2023, the appearance of mourning notices issued by terrorist organisations for operatives killed in those inactive schools has not prompted the BBC to update its reporting on those stories in order to ensure that what it describes as “a permanent public record” and “an important source for future reporting and historical research” is accurate and impartial.
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