Late on the evening of October 3rd the BBC News website published a report headlined “Israeli air strike kills 18 people in occupied West Bank” which told readers that:
“At least 18 people have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said late on Thursday.
The Palestinian Authority-run news agency Wafa said the air strike had hit a cafe in the Tulkarm refugee camp where many civilians had been present.
The Israeli military said the air force had conducted a strike in Tulkarm in a joint operation with its Shin Bet security service and had killed the head of Hamas in Tulkarm and “other significant terrorists”.”
Later in that version of the report, readers were told that:
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the strike had killed Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi, who it said had attempted a car bombing last month and supplied weapons.”
BBC audiences were not informed that the attempted car bombing had taken place at the entrance to the community of Ateret or to whom Oufi “supplied weapons”. As reported by the Times of Israel:
“He was also involved in providing weapons to other terror operatives who carried out numerous attacks in the West Bank and in Israel recently, including those that led to the injury of Israeli civilians, according to the military.
The IDF and Shin Bet add that he “worked to establish terrorist networks on behalf of Hamas and assisted terror operatives in the area to carry out significant shooting and explosive attacks.””
Following confirmation from Hamas that Oufi had been killed in the strike, the BBC updated its headline to read “Israeli strike kills Hamas commander in occupied West Bank” and the current version of the report – which is credited to Zahra Fatima – now opens:
“At least 18 people including several Hamas fighters have been killed in an Israeli air strike in the occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm, the Palestinian health ministry said late on Thursday.
The Palestinian Authority-run news agency Wafa said the strike had hit a cafe in the Tulkarm refugee camp where many civilians were present.
Hamas confirmed that commander Zahi Yaser Abd al-Razeq Oufi was killed by the strike, who the IDF say attempted a car bombing last month and supplied weapons.
The Israeli military said the air strike was a joint operation with its Shin Bet security service, aimed at killing Oufi and “other significant terrorists”.
Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said on messaging app Telegram that seven of its fighters were killed in the attack on the cafe.”
Remarkably, that quote from “the Israeli military” is the only use of the word terrorists in an entire report about a counter-terrorism operation.
The BBC’s report has not been further updated to clarify that at least twelve of those killed in the strike were members of terrorist organisations – ten from Hamas and two from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – with the latter not mentioned at all in the BBC’s coverage.
The current version of the report goes on to state:
“One resident from the area told AFP news agency the Israeli had “hit a cafeteria in a three-story building.”
“There are many victims in the hospital,” the resident added.
It said he had been planning another attack imminently, and was killed along with several other Hamas operatives.”
With no clarification provided concerning the ‘it’ [AFP?] or the ‘he’ [the resident?] in that third sentence (which apparently should have been placed after the earlier one referring to “the Israeli military”), BBC audiences would obviously have difficulty understanding that the reason for the strike was the fact that those terrorists were planning an imminent attack around the anniversary of Hamas’ October 7th massacre.
Failing to address the issue of why at least a dozen terrorists were holding a meeting in a residential area and hence civilians were also apparently killed, Fatima promotes unverified anonymous claims quoted by the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency:
“Wafa quoted a local official as saying children and elderly people from several families had been killed in the strike. There were also a large number of injured.”
All versions of this BBC report include the often promoted claim of a “spike in violence in the West Bank” since October 7th 2023 but fail to inform readers that it in fact began long before the current war, with facilitation by Iranian proxy terrorist organisations.
The version of the report currently available online states: [emphasis added]
“There was a further spike in violence in the West Bank after Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the ensuing war in Gaza, in what was already the occupied territory’s deadliest year on record.”
Like so many of her colleagues before her, Fatima makes no effort to inform her readers that the vast majority of those killed during that time period were perpetrators of terror attacks, terrorists and gunmen who attacked Israeli troops or males involved in rioting at the time.
Again failing to clarify that the majority of those killed during the past year were likewise perpetrating terrorism or involved in violence at the time, the various versions of the report also claim that:
“Since then, more than 700 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, according to the Palestinian health ministry, as Israeli forces have intensified their raids. The IDF has said it is trying to stem deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis in the West Bank and Israel.”
Fatima later tells readers that:
“Meanwhile, at least 24 Israelis including members of the security forces have been killed by Palestinian attackers in the same period, according to Israeli officials.”
Perhaps if the BBC went to the trouble of reporting all the terror-related fatalities in Israel it would know that since October 7th 2023:
“…40 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.”
Notably, Fatima chose to uncritically amplify talking points from the UN’s notoriously biased human rights office: [emphasis added]
“The UN rights office condemned the attack in a statement on Friday.
“The strike is part of a highly concerning pattern of unlawful use of force by ISF (Israeli security forces) during military-like operations in the West Bank that have caused widespread harm to Palestinians and significant damage to buildings and infrastructure,” the UN said.
Tulkarm was one of the towns and Palestinian refugee camps targeted during a major Israeli military operation in August.
Last month UN rights chief Volker Turk said major Israeli operations in the occupied West Bank were taking place “at a scale not witnessed in the last two decades”.”
Fatima made no attempt to clarify to BBC audiences that targeting operatives from two proscribed terrorist organisations who were in the process of planning an imminent attack against civilians is not “unlawful”. Neither did she bother to explain that the reason for the “scale” of counter-terrorism operations in Palestinian Authority controlled areas is the rise in Palestinian terrorism since 2022 and she failed to provide relevant context by noting that Tulkarem and Nur Shams have become major hubs of terrorist activity.
Zahra Fatima’s report joins the many other items of BBC content which, over the past two-and-a half years, have failed to provide audiences with the information necessary for understanding of counter-terrorism operations in PA controlled areas.
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