BBC Admits Including Hamas Terrorists in Civilian Gaza Death Count

A pedestrian is reflected in the glass facade while walking past the BBC Headquarters at the Broadcasting House in central London on Oct. 6, 2022. Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images

The BBC has admitted that its reporting of civilian fatalities in the Gaza Strip was inaccurate because it included the deaths of Hamas terrorists.

The broadcaster’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) upheld a viewer’s complaint regarding a “News at Ten” bulletin on Jan. 14, with the network admitting on Thursday that “the result fell below the BBC’s standards of accuracy.”

Two minutes into the bulletin covering a vigil held in Tel Aviv to mark the 100th day since the start of the Israel–Hamas war, the reporter said, “And the number of civilians killed in Gaza has been huge—very nearly 24,000 dead, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, many of them women and children.”

The viewer complained that the report had given an inaccurate impression because it failed to make clear the number quoted included Hamas terrorists.

Initially, the complaint was rejected as the response had transcribed the passage with a full stop after “huge,” with the suggestion that the two sentences should be considered as “conveying distinct thoughts.”

However, the complaint was escalated and the ECU determined that viewers would probably have heard the passage as a single sentence.

“But even if a full stop were the correct punctuation, the passage gave the unintended impression that the figure from the Hamas-run Health Ministry consisted only of civilian dead, whereas it also included combatants, and the ECU thought this impression unlikely to have been counteracted by the reference in the studio introduction two minutes earlier to ’more than 23,000 people' having been killed in Gaza,” the BBC said in its judgment.

The finding has been reported to the Board of BBC News.

BBC Coverage of the Israel–Hamas War

This is not the first time the BBC has had to apologise for its coverage of the Israel–Hamas war.

In January, the broadcaster apologised for not making “sufficient effort” in corroborating a claim by Hamas that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had killed 137 Palestinian civilians and buried them in a pit in the Gaza Strip.

In October, BBC News said that one of its reporters was “wrong” to speculate that Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City was likely bombed by Israel and it had not made clear that “it had yet to verify who was behind the blast.” The IDF said an errant rocket launched by the Islamist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad had hit the hospital.

Throughout the early period of the conflict, the BBC came under criticism for not referring to Hamas as terrorists—using instead terms such as “bomber, attacker, gunman, kidnapper, insurgent, and militant.” The broadcaster changed its editorial practices in late October.

Accusations of Pro-Trans Bias

The BBC has also been criticised for its approach to reporting transgender issues.

Earlier this month, the group For Women Scotland wrote to BBC Scotland to complain about its “poor coverage” of the Cass Review, a report which had delivered a highly-critical assessment of how the UK’s health institutions had rushed children towards inappropriate medical pathways.

For Women Scotland told The Epoch Times that coverage on the nightly news programme “The Nine” had “leaned heavily” on pro-trans activists, lacked balance and accuracy, and failed to consider the opinions of medical experts.

Also this month, the BBC admitted it had breached accuracy rules by failing to mention that convicted murderer Scarlet Blake identifies as transgender. However, the ECU said the broadcaster did not break impartiality rules by referring to the male as “she” or “her.” The BBC’s complaints unit used “she/her” pronouns when referencing Blake in the summary of its findings.

This appears to be in line with the BBC’s style guide, which states, “Using appropriate language is an important part of how we portray people in our stories.” On the matter of gender, journalists should describe “a person born male who lives as a female” as a “transgender woman,” using the pronoun “she” and vice-versa.

BBC Director-General Tim Davie told a parliamentary panel that saying “trans women” were males was in breach of the broadcaster’s guidelines.

Mr. Davie made the remarks in relation to a complaint being upheld against BBC Radio 4 presenter Justin Webb who had used the phrase “trans women, in other words, males.”

Mr. Davie said that Mr. Webb’s comment “was a breach.”

“It’s quite a small thing. But it registered. It was just a sentence that wasn’t quite right. [...] I think that’s what it was, no more, no less. And to act on that quickly is the right thing,” he said in support of the ECU’s decision.

“The other thing is, we have to be kind and caring in this, and listen to people. And be nice,” he said.