Mick Hartley

The latest BBC Gaza summary:

1. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says an Israeli air strike on a hospital has killed at least 12 people
2. After the reported strike at the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, Israeli tanks were seen moving into the area
3. Israel has not commented, but says it's attacking "terrorists" and "terrorist infrastructure" in the Gaza Strip
4. Earlier, the Israeli military released footage which it said showed a "55m-long terror tunnel, 10m deep" underneath another hospital, al-Shifa
5. It said the footage "clearly proves that numerous buildings in the hospital's complex are used by Hamas as cover for terrorist activities"
6. Hamas has repeatedly denied these allegations – as have medical staff working at Gaza City's largest hospital
7. Meanwhile, Qatar – which is trying to broker a deal – says only "very minor" obstacles remain to Israeli hostages being released
8. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says 13,000 people have been killed in the territory since Israel began its campaign against Hamas
9. Israel began attacking Gaza after Hamas fighters crossed the border on 7 October, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 hostage

The meticulously detailed IDF findings, proving beyond any reasonable doubt that al-Shifa hospital housed a Hamas command centre, are down to #4 and #5, and are clearly facts that the Beeb finds unpersuasive. Much more of the reporting is based on Hamas sources – Hamas being a terrorist group that openly campaigns for the murder of Jews and the rule of Islam across the world. At #9 we read about Hamas "fighters" crossing the border: this being the time they butchered raped and terrorised Israeli citizens in a sadistic pogrom which they took great pains to record.

Danny Cohen is a former BBC Director and Controller of BBC One, writing here in the Telegraph – BBC’s credibility with Jewish community has reached breaking point:

On a daily basis Britain’s Jews are being harmed through its unbalanced reporting of the Israel-Hamas war and the failure of its senior management to get to grips with it.

This means that the time has now come for a long overdue independent inquiry into the corporation’s editorial and management failures in its reporting of Israel.

The problems started almost as soon as Hamas began its horrific attacks on October 7. The BBC’s unwillingness to describe the burning alive of families in their homes, the rape of women and the murder of babies as a terrorist attack is now well known and stands in stark contrast with its reporting of other recent terrorist incidents.

If it were possible, the BBC’s description of these massacres has actually become more egregious. BBC News has since described the pogrom of October 7 as a ‘cross-border attack’ as if it were a skirmish between two warring armies rather than the worst massacre of Jewish families since the Holocaust….

Unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. The BBC’s anti-Israel bias spans both its UK and global output and its broadcasting and online presence. Examples of this could fill pages and many have been reported, including the corporation’s inaccurate reporting of the bombing of the Al-Shifa hospital which led to the cancellation of President Biden’s meetings with Arab leaders and the reporting of a mob attack on Jews in Dagestan that the BBC described as simply ‘anti-Israel’. The fact that the mob had chanted, ‘We are here for the Jews. We came to kill them with knives and shoot at them’ did not appear to qualify as a clear enough statement of racist intent.

Sadly, there is so much more. The BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Caroline Hawley appears to have no interest in balance when it comes to Israel and the Hamas attacks. Her Twitter feed reads like a series of press releases from Hamas central command. Day after day Hawley reposts messages and photographs from Gaza without context or any apparent attempt at basic journalistic verification. There is barely a mention of the Oct 7 massacres or the ongoing plight of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

BBC reporter Rhami Ruhayem also fails to meet the BBC’s own requirement of unbiased reporting. His Twitter feed rivals Hawley’s for its lack of neutrality and context. Ruhayem writes of casualties in Gaza and blames, ‘Western media for being complicit in Israel’s attack’.

He makes no reference to the pogrom that preceded Israel’s response in Gaza or its right to self defence. Ruhayem’s Twitter feed is still active and is captioned ‘Correspondent for the BBC’. Again, it seems reasonable to presume that the BBC is either content with this reporting on its behalf or unable or unwilling to do anything about it.

With these incidents piling up on a daily basis there is only one conclusion to draw. Either the BBC’s senior management is complicit in these egregious examples of bias, these regular breaches of its guidelines, or it lacks the ability to control the output of its own organisation.

The problem goes way back.

When it comes to Israel, the BBC has proved itself unwilling to share with the public the findings of its own investigations. In 2004, the Balen Report addressed the question of anti-Israel bias in the BBC. But the public has never had the chance to read it. Indeed, the BBC has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of licence-fee payers’ money to keep its contents secret.