Why Does the BBC Continue to Slander Israel About Hospital Anti-Terror Operation?

Previously we have discussed written and filmed BBC reports on the topic of a counter-terrorism operation in late December at the Kamal Adwan hospital in the northern Gaza Strip.

BBC News website coverage of that story and its wider background did not however end there. In the days that followed, visitors to the site’s “Middle East” page found two reports promoting one-sided messaging but omitting relevant information.

A December 30 report credited to David Gritten and Yolande Knell – “WHO appeals for end to attacks on Gaza’s hospitals” – promotes (and links to) a statement put out by the head of the World Health Organization in relation to “attacks on hospitals in Gaza,” but fails to provide readers with relevant information in the BBC’s own words concerning the exploitation of Gaza Strip hospitals by terrorist organizations.

That obviously crucially relevant part of the story – which Yolande Knell did manage to report over a decade ago – is similarly absent from the report’s later promotion of similar messaging from the ICRC.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also warned on Monday that hostilities in and around hospitals had “obliterated the healthcare system in northern Gaza, putting civilians at an unacceptably grave risk of going without lifesaving care.”

“Medical facilities have protections and civilians have protections in situations of conflict. These need to be respected and this is our constant call,” spokeswoman Sarah Davies told the BBC.”

The report also promotes statements concerning the detention of the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital from the WHO head and from an American NGO called MedGlobal, which describes the apparently Hamas-linked head of that military medical facility as “our lead physician in Gaza” [emphasis added].

And in a related press release, it claims that, “Healthcare personnel and facilities are protected under International Humanitarian Law and must never become targets in hostilities” without clarifying that protected status is lost if a medical facility is used for military purposes, as is the case at the Kamal Adwan hospital.

Dr Tedros also joined rights groups and relatives calling for the immediate release of Kamal Adwan’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, who was detained by Israeli forces.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that his hospital was a Hamas “stronghold” and that troops had killed about 20 “terrorists” and detained 240 others during the raid. It added that Dr Abu Safiya was among those taken for questioning and that he was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative”.

The military did not provide evidence for the allegations, which Hamas dismissed as “lies.”

US-based MedGlobal condemned the detention of Dr Abu Safiya, who was its lead physician in Gaza, as “not only unjust” but also “a violation of international humanitarian law, which upholds the protection of medical personnel in conflict zones.”

The following day – December 31 – the BBC News website published a report by David Gritten titled “UN says Israeli attacks pushing Gaza healthcare towards total collapse.”

The UN Human Rights Office says Israeli attacks on and around hospitals have pushed Gaza’s healthcare system to “the brink of total collapse” and raised serious concerns about war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A new report describes a pattern in which Israeli forces struck, besieged and forcibly evacuated hospitals, leading to patients dying or being killed.

It acknowledges Israel’s allegations that hospitals have been used by Palestinian armed groups, but says the evidence is “vague.”

Around four hours after the report’s initial publication, the following two paragraphs were added:

Israel’s mission in Geneva said the report was an expression of what it called the UN Human Rights Office’s “politically-driven obsession with Israel“ and that it “relied on information from Hamas health authorities.” It stressed that Israeli forces operated in accordance with international law and would “never target innocent civilians.”

“It is the murderous terrorist organisation Hamas that uses civilians as human shields, and uses hospitals for terror activity,” it added.

Once again, the BBC’s reporting failed to provide audiences with information concerning the long-known exploitation of medical facilities by terrorist organizations in the corporation’s own words, thereby reducing the issue to one of competing narratives. Notably, too, Gritten has nothing to tell its audiences about the failure of the UN and its assorted departments to condemn – and act against – that Hamas strategy which is detrimental to the healthcare of civilians in the Gaza Strip, before going on to state:

“As if the relentless bombing and the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza were not enough, the one sanctuary where Palestinians should have felt safe in fact became a death trap,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said on Tuesday. […]

Medical personnel and hospitals are specifically protected under international humanitarian law, provided they do not commit, or are not used to commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful to the enemy. Even then, any attack must still comply with the fundamental principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack.

The OHCHR said intentionally directing attacks against hospitals and places where the sick and wounded were treated, intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, and intentionally launching disproportionate attacks were war crimes.

And under certain circumstances, the deliberate destruction of healthcare facilities may also amount to a form of collective punishment, which would also constitute a war crime.

Gritten did however find fit to amplify Hamas denials: “Hamas and medical staff have denied that the hospitals have been used by armed groups.”

As is the case in most of the BBC’s reporting on events in the Gaza Strip, both those reports include the following context: “Israel launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.”

Notably, the BBC serially refrains from informing its audiences that 100 hostages still remain in captivity in the Gaza Strip, and that – as the BBC knows – some of the hostages were held in hospitals.

These two reports once again clearly show that the BBC has chosen to amplify narratives and politically motivated campaigns rather than to report news and fulfill its obligation to provide its audiences with the full range of information which would enable them to become “informed citizens.”

Hadar Sela is the co-editor of CAMERA UK — an affiliate of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.

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