The BBC issued an apology Friday over their report alleging that Israel was carrying out summary executions, based solely on Hamas accusations.
The BBC broadcasted this allegation on Dec. 24, 2023, despite the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commenting that they were unaware of such conduct by their soldiers and that Hamas could not be trusted to convey the truth, the BBC noted. The source for the story that the BBC ran appears to have come from an article in the Agence France-Presse (AFP), reporting that Hamas had accused Israel of summarily executing 137 Palestinians, despite AFP being unable to verify these claims, Deadline reported. (RELATED: Corporate Media Mass Stealth-Edits Headlines After Blindly Parroting Hamas To Blame Israel For Hospital Bombing)
The British outlet acknowledged in their bulletin that “we had not made sufficient effort to seek corroborating evidence to justify reporting the Hamas claim. We apologise for this mistake.”
BBC apologizes for report accusing IDF of ‘summary executions’ in the Gaza Strip https://t.co/jZqK2oTI7O . Click to read ⬇️
— The Times of Israel (@TimesofIsrael) January 9, 2024
The Times of Israel noted that there was no evidence of mass executions as described by Hamas occurring in Gaza but that there was one incident under investigation by the IDF where a Palestinian detainee was shot by an Israeli guard in Gaza.
This is but the latest incident where the BBC has apologized for its lackluster reporting on the Hamas-Israel War. Back in November, the BBC issued a formal correction after the outlet misquoted a Reuters article concerning Israeli forces going into the al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza. The misquote suggested that the Israelis were set on punishing noncombatants.
The BBC claimed that “medical teams and Arab speakers” were targeted by the IDF in their hospital raid while the source they relied on stated that the Israeli team going into the hospital incorporated “medical teams and Arabic speakers for this operation.”
The IDF claims that Hamas unethically uses civilian infrastructure like hospitals for military purposes. Such claims by the IDF are not without evidence given that they have found weapons and other military assets at Gazan hospitals.
The BBC’s practice of not calling Hamas a terrorist organization has also drawn criticism over their alleged bias and even open protest of Israel’s response to the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7.