BBC Admits Mistake for Speculating About Gaza Hospital Bombing

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

BBC News said on Thursday that one of its reporters was “wrong” to speculate that Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza City was likely bombed by Israel.

The statement came after the Israel’s President Isaac Herzog accused media outlets which cited the Hamas claim of “broadcasting a 21st century blood libel around the globe.”

Mr. Herzog also hit out at the BBC for refusing to directly call Hamas a terrorist group in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, claiming the public broadcasting house’s coverage on Israel-Hamas war is “atrocious” because of this.

In a statement released on Thursday, the BBC issued a statement that the programme did make clear that “ it had yet to verify who was behind the blast,” but it was “wrong” for the reporter to speculate in this way.”

The corporation’s director of journalism Jonathan Munro also said the “language wasn’t quite right.”

The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry on Oct. 17 accused the Israeli military of killing hundreds at the Al-Ahli Hospital with an airstrike. The accusation was quoted by media outlets and seized upon as evidence that Israel Defence Forces target civilians in Gaza.

The IDF said the blast was a result of an errant rocket launched by the anti-Israel terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

U.S. analysis suggests that the bombing was  “done by the other team” rather than Israel, according to President Joe Biden. The UK government has not drawn a conclusion, with Security Minister Tom Tugendhat warning against “irresponsible speculation.”

After a blast the previous day, people inspect the area of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, on Oct. 18, 2023. Mohammed Al-Masri/Reuters

During the BBC’s live coverage after the incident, reporter Jon Donnison speculated, “It is hard to see what else this could be, really, given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli airstrike, or several airstrikes.”

Mr. Herzog on Tuesday criticised media outlets that he said “swallow[ed] the like of Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” and said they were “broadcasting a 21st century blood libel around the globe” in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Israeli government and British immigration minister Robert Jenrick repeated the phrase, naming the BBC on X on Thursday.

The State of Israel’s official account tagged BBC World, saying, “your modern blood libel about the hospital attack is still up.”

Mr. Jenrick asserted that Jewish people in the UK and in Israel “will suffer” as a result of the BBC and others’ “carelessness, ignorance, and irresponsibility.”

On Wednesday, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told Parliament, “It is incredibly important the BBC and other broadcasters are very careful in their reporting of this issue because of the sensitivity and because of the implications, not just in the region itself but here in the UK.”

The comments came as Mr. Herzog also piled on the criticisms over the BBC’s insistence on not directly calling Hamas a terrorist organisation despite it has been proscribed by the UK government.

The president told UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was visiting Jerusalem on Thursday, the Israeli government believes “the way the BBC characterises Hamas is a distortion of the facts.”

He also told the Daily Mail that he felt the BBC’s reporting had been “atrocious.”

“The fact that it does not recognise Hamas as a terror organisation requires a complete legal battle and public battle. It’s unbelievable,” he said.

Speaking at the Media Society’s Reporting The Israel Hamas Conflict event on Thursday, Mr. Munro said Mr. Donnison “was wrong to speculate about the cause of the explosion of the hospital.”

“At no stage did he actually say it was caused by the Israelis … but nonetheless, when the impression is left that we’ve speculated, [it] is important to correct that which we’ve done,” he said.

He said that it’s “very uncomfortable” when a mistake “gets magnified” but the speculation “shouldn’t have happened.”

While acknowledging the mistake, the BBC’s statement said the programme “doesn’t represent the entirety of the BBC’s output” which “have set out both sides’ competing claims about the explosion, clearly showing who is saying them, and what we do or don’t know.”

The broadcaster has maintained that its editorial guidelines, which tells journalists to avoid using the word “terrorists,” have served it well although some critics have accused the broadcaster of not applying the rules consistently.

In a statement released earlier this week, the BBC said it will “consult and debate these issues” next spring when a planned periodic review is set to happen.

The scene at BBC Broadcasting House in London, after red paint was sprayed over the entrance on Oct. 14, 2023. James Manning/PA

Besides criticism from the pro-Israel side, the BBC was also blasted by anti-Israel viewers. The broadcasting house previously said it had received complaints from both sides.

The broadcasting house’s headquarters in London was vandalised last weekend. The police haven’t identified any suspects. A pro-Palestinian group, Palestine Action, claimed responsibility shortly after the incident, stating that activists sprayed the BBC with “blood red paint,” which it says symbolises the BBC’s “complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people through biased reporting.”