Speaking for the Israel Defence Forces, Peter Lerner has demanded an apology from the BBC and its editor, Jeremy Bowen, for casting doubt on IDF proof of Hamas’s presence in the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza.
Since early on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers have been at Al-Shifa, and they have been sharing video from the medical facility. Along with his verbal description of “weapons, communication equipment, RPGS, [and a] Toyota pickup laden with weapons” that he purportedly spotted there, Lerner uploaded CCTV footage from the location to X (previously Twitter). The footage also featured males with blurry faces being carried on a gurney. Will BBCWorld issue an apology? Will BowenBBC say that I was incorrect?” he penned.
“There is no independent scrutiny inside the hospital; journalists cannot move freely into Gaza, and any who are reporting from the site are working under the aegis of the Israeli military,” the BBC editor Jeremy Bowen wrote in a Saturday article criticising IDF restrictions on reporting from Al-Shifa. Bowen was the target of his post.
The biggest hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa, has been in the news for the last six weeks. A large portion of the footage of civilians hurt by IDF operations that was released by the Palestinian Health Ministry was shot there. According to Israel, the facility was part of the militants’ infrastructure and was connected to Hamas’ vast subterranean network.
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According to local officials, on October 7, Hamas launched a concerted attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of at least 1,200 Israelis, thousands of injuries, and the capture of over 200 captives.
In response, West Jerusalem launched the “Swords of Iron” military operation, which included a land invasion, heavy airstrikes on the Palestinian enclave, and a siege of Gaza. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that at least 12,000 people died as a result of this operation, 5,000 of whom were children.
After that, Bowen stated that he did not “believe [it] to be convincing in terms of the kind of rhetoric Israelis were using” in reference to the proof that the IDF had so far given. In order to maintain the backing of its foreign friends, he concluded, “for Israel it’s crucial to prove that it had no choice other than to use methods that killed thousands of civilians.”
The campaign’s rising toll of civilian casualties appears to be changing the tone of speech from Israel’s most ardent backers. In a speech earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that “far too many Palestinians have been killed.” These previous several weeks have seen far too many tragedies.
BBC
