BBC forced to correct two Gaza stories a week

[Twiglets1]

The BBC has been forced to correct two stories a week about the Gaza conflict since the Oct 7 attacks on Israel, The Telegraph has revealed.

BBC Arabic has had to make 215 corrections and clarifications over the past two years on stories that were found to be biased, inaccurate or misleading.

The figures follow a week of revelations by The Telegraph of one-sided reporting at the BBC, disclosed in an 8,000-word dossier compiled by a whistleblower, which also accused BBC Arabic of choosing to “minimise Israeli suffering” in the war in Gaza to “paint Israel as the aggressor”.

On Monday, the BBC is also expected to apologise for the misleading editing of a Donald Trump speech in a Panorama documentary, putting further pressure on Tim Davie, the BBC’s director general, to quit.

The media bias campaign group Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) obtained the corrections after over 100 of its complaints over BBC Arabic’s coverage were upheld.

One of its complaints involved a BBC Arabic report in January this year about the treatment of hostages by the Al-Qassam Brigade, in which the Hamas unit was described as “guarding” the hostages and being “responsible for securing the hostages”, rather than holding them captive.

BBC Arabic – which is part of the World Service and is funded mainly through the licence fee – has also been forced to make more than 40 corrections after Camera complained about stories that incorrectly referred to communities inside Israel’s internationally recognised territory as “settlements” and their residents as “settlers”.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/09/bbc-forced-to-correct-two-gaza-stories-a-week/

From the same source:

Michael Prescott, who until June was an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee (EGSC), was so appalled by the corporation’s lack of action over numerous instances of bias that he sent a memo to all BBC Board members, which is now circulating in government departments.

In a copy of the letter, which was last week published by The Telegraph, he said that BBC Arabic gave a platform to journalists who had made extreme anti-Semitic comments.

Among the examples of bias highlighted by both Camera and Mr Prescott were the differences in stories about an attack by Hamas on Oct 1 2024 that killed seven Israeli civilians in Jaffa.

While the BBC News English version reported how the civilians were killed on a train and railway platform, the BBC Arabic version presented the attack as a military operation with no mention of the civilian victims.

Another BBC Arabic report in January this year described the Al-Qassam Brigade as “guarding” the hostages and as being “responsible for securing the hostages”, rather than holding them captive.

It also featured two female Israeli hostages “thanking” their captors for the “good treatment” they received while “in custody”.

Following a complaint from Camera that the video omitted the “horrific reality of the torture and execution of hostages”, BBC Arabic was forced to amend its story.

It removed the section that claimed the hostages had received good treatment and added a brief reference to Hamas abuse.

Another complaint from Camera was that a BBC Arabic series about Hamas, its ideology and the motivation behind the Oct 7 attacks, made no mention of the terror group’s founding charter – which pledges to destroy Israel and create an Islamic state.

Camera complained that instead the programmes gave a platform to Hamas’s justification for the attacks.

The BBC dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the focus of the series was not the ideology of Hamas. The ECU upheld the finding, ruling that “in this context an understanding of the Hamas charter was not directly relevant”.

Hadar Sela, co-editor of Camera, said: “This report exposes the scale of misinformation spread by BBC Arabic in its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war and the rise in anti-Semitism across the West.

“Since the Hamas massacre on Oct 7, BBC Arabic has issued 215 corrections after we flagged stories that were inaccurate, misleading, or biased.

“Yet when our complaints are rejected and we appeal to the BBC’s internal watchdog, the Executive Complaints Unit, the outcome is predictable: the ECU sides with BBC Arabic.

“The ECU’s own view of “due accuracy and impartiality” is far removed from any reasonable understanding of honest journalism.”

Pretty shocking isn't it?

Yes... they have been hiding a lot of things under the carpet but so much is coming out now that it will be hard to maintain the illusion of being unbiased.

It sounds like BBC Arabic is far worse ... but the main BBC organisation is bad enough.

I'm seeing a lot of people saying that they are going to stop paying their licence fee unless Tim Davie can give a "convincing explanation" for the bias row, (sounds unlikely), including Boris Johnson!

Its infuriating. I'm a massive supporter of the BBC but this level of bias is completely unacceptable.

Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservatives, wrote to Mr Davie in February this year to complain about BBC Arabic’s coverage, describing it as a “platform for terrorists” that was promoting “appalling anti-Semitism” to millions of viewers.

BBC Arabic had previously given a platform to journalists who had made extreme anti-Semitic comments.

Ahmed Qannan, a regular BBC Arabic contributor, described a Palestinian who killed four Israeli civilians and a police officer in March 2022 as a “hero”.

When a friend of his posted on Facebook “we want to see some throats cut” in response to a shooting near a Jerusalem synagogue, which claimed the lives of seven civilians on Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2023, Mr Qannan replied: “Don’t give up on your ambition.”

The BBC’s internal review found he had appeared on BBC Arabic 217 times in the 14 months to April 2025.

Ahmed Alagha, who described Israelis as less than human and Jews as “devils”, appeared on BBC Arabic 522 times between November 2023 and April 2025, the BBC’s internal review found.

Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC Television, said: “It has been obvious for a long time that BBC Arabic employs anti-Semites pumping out anti-Israel propaganda – paid for by UK taxpayers – but BBC executives have buried their heads in the sand.

“You would think having to issue so many corrections would raise red flags that there was a problem but Tim Davie has failed to sort it out. Global News director Jonathan Munro refuses to accept anything is wrong.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/09/bbc-forced-to-correct-two-gaza-stories-a-week/

It's a shame I am not surprised by this and probably has something to do within the culture of the BBC. Maybe there is a fear of upsetting minorities within this country but there has been a subtle position taken by the BBC which has limited the sheer horror of Hamas being explored (e.g. refusal to call the October 7th perpetrators terrorists) while being quick to portray Israel as an aggressor.

Now there is a ceasefire I hope the BBC reflect on their reporting standards and continue to combat bias.

Also unsurprised. I was aware of what was going on with BBC Arabic early last year and that made me completely discredit anything reported by the BBC on this conflict.

This is a UK public corporation operating under a Royal Charter, funded by UK public funds under threat of a prison sentence if UK citizens don’t pay, and they allowed this to continue!

The fact they refuse to call a terrorist organisation designated as such by the UK government who fund them using tax payers money, terrorists, should have been immediately dealt with serious repercussions towards whoever made that decision as it sounds like support for a designated terrorist organisation to me which is an offence under the Terrorism Act.

It is an absolute scandal although sadly because it is against Israel and the Jewish people, there probably won’t be much done about it.

They won’t be reflecting on anything until made to do so, in my opinion.

The culture at the BBC seems quite arrogant to me. However, they have gone too far recently and it has been picked up that they are not always reporting the news in an unbiased way on several topics including Gaza.

There may need to be some resignations at the top from people like Tim Davie to get them to really reflect on whether they are always as neutral as they should be.

I agree with you about their decision not to call a terrorist organisation a terrorist organisation. I know they have argued this enhances their neutral position but I’m not buying it. What next, maybe they will stop referring to murderers & rapists as murderers & rapists because that sounds judgemental?? Why the special consideration for terrorists? I think the BBC as a public corporation should be aligned with the British government on this issue.

The current charter comes to an end in 2027 and I would like to see a change to their funding model because I no longer find them a particularly trustworthy source of news. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are forced to move to a subscription model at that stage.

Another here who isn’t surprised. Can someone explain why the BBC is so institutionally antisemitic though? I don’t get it.

OMG it just flashed up on my phone the breaking news that Tim Davie has been forced to resign!

Along with the CEO of News, Deborah Turness.

Like everyone else. No surprised, but astonishing.

three massive stories.

trump.
trans bias.
anti-semitism.

this should be the end of the BBC. It is thier fundamental main job. Tell us the news. Massive massive bias. Paid for by us!

it’s quite obvious why it has happened. There will be no diversity of thought or diversity of opinion. So no one even realises what they’re doing is wrong.

also, these biases have real world impacts. To real people. They way they vote, increased violence, the destruction of women’s rights.

Massive respect to the telegraph.

They've been doing this kind of thing for 20+ years.

During the 'intifada' in the early 2000's they used to put horrendously anti-Israel stories on the BBC website. They would be listed in the top ten most read section. After a few hours, or even days later, they would edit the stories to provide more balance. The 'last edited' time would remain the same, so unless you'd taken screenshots nobody would believe those claiming foul play.

This practice meant that the majority of readers were fed the initial biased version, but anybody attempting to audit or track their bias at a later date could only see the edited version.

It was known by the BBC's critics as 'stealth editing'.

I'm glad they've finally been rumbled. Let's hope the whole stinking edifice is consigned to the dustbin of history.

I just wish there was this much scrutiny for all media channels and newspapers. Meanwhile the Daily Mail, Fox News and GBeebies talk absolute lies, fear and shite every day with zero scrutiny and people here swallow it whole.

Over my dead body will the BBC ever disappear. It's a shame that Mumsnet has become such a right wing dustbin these days, it's worse than the Daily Mail and Telegraph comments.

This is interesting:

Al Jazeera Arabic was launched on November 1, 1996, by the government of Qatar. The channel was established after BBC Arabic Television shut down due to censorship disagreements with its Saudi partner. Many former BBC Arabic journalists joined Al Jazeera, bringing Western-style investigative journalism to the Arab world.

And this from 2003 during the 2nd Intifada.

www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/01_january/15/al-jazeera.shtml

@spoonbillstretford
Over my dead body will the BBC ever disappear

Who are you again?

The BBC is an institution. We should be able to trust them intrinsically to report the news factually, not their biased interpretation of the news.

You do understand that the BBC is supposed to be politically neutral as a state funded broadcaster?

Other media outlets can be politically aligned left or right as they see fit. We’re not forced to pay for them.

Exactly ... with other UK news sources you can choose whether to pay to subscribe to more right wing sources like the Telegraph or left wing sources like The Guardian.

The BBC is different. It is funded differently and is supposed to be politically neutral as you say.

Interesting.

I have noticed myself a few stories changing over time to appear more balanced than the first time the story was reported. With their reports about Gaza.

But unless you take a screen shot, it's hard to remember exactly how the story was first presented.

I'm old enough to remember (being incensed at) Moira Stewart reading out a news script that referred to "Israeli forces" and "Palestinian terrorists".