The Wire - BBC fails to clarify Gaza air strikes targeted militants

Just Journalism
The Wire
Tues. 16 Aug. 2011 @ 13.45 –



http://justjournalism.com/bbc-focus/bbc-fails-to-clarify-gaza-air-strikes-targeted-militants/

Coverage of air strikes into Gaza does not clarify that Israel specifically hit military targets, nor mentions that casualty is confirmed Hamas member.

In response to several rockets that were fired at the Israeli town of Beersheva, Israel last night struck several targets in Gaza. According to Haaretz, Hamas medical sources confirmed that a group of gunmen had been hit, resulting in one casualty and several injuries:

‘Hamas sources said three gunmen involved in firing rockets at Israel were hit in the first air strike, east of Gaza City. One of the gunmen later died of his injuries, they said.’

The Reuters news service also reported on the death:

‘Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday killed one gunman and wounded five other Palestinians, medical sources said, after militants in the Hamas-controlled territory fired rockets into southern Israel.’

The information centre of the Al Qassam Brigades – the official military wing of Hamas – have released a press release confirming that the casualty was a member of the Islamist militant group.

The only British outlet to report this was the BBC News website. However, ‘Israeli air strikes on Gaza after rocket hits Beersheba’ did not explain that Israel struck military targets and is highly ambiguous about the background of those injured.

Opening by stating that ‘Israel has carried out a series of air strikes on the Gaza Strip’, the article’s citation of medical sources gives none of the information that the other news outlets included:

‘One Palestinian was killed and at least five others were wounded, Palestinian health officials said.’

There is no suggestion that any of those injured were militants targeted specifically due to their involvement in rocket fire. Instead, the article continues by again citing a medical source who simply describes the ‘martyrdom’ of a ‘youth’ – without mentioning he was a confirmed Hamas militant.

‘”We learned of the martyrdom of the youth Musa Shtawe, 29, who died of his injuries after a strike east of Gaza City,” Adham Abu Selmiya, spokesman for the Hamas-run emergency services in the Gaza Strip, is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.’

Additionally, the inclusion of a photo showing a woman being rushed to hospital and the reference to a child being injured in a strike near the Rafah border crossing suggests that while no clarification was provided about the militants, the BBC saw fit to include details about civilians injured.

The impression that Israel had struck civilian targets in arbitrary retaliation for rockets from Gaza was furthered by the absence of information about the sites that had been hit:

‘Some of the pre-dawn strikes targeted an area east of Gaza City, [medical officials] said. […] Further south, two more raids were carried out east of Khan Yunis and on a tunnel under the border with Egypt near Rafah, Palestinian sources said.’

Al Jazeera’s reporting of the same strikes notes that two of these locations were Hamas training grounds:

‘The warplanes also targeted two Hamas training camps, one east of Gaza City and another west of Khan Younis city.’

The BBC also failed to mention that the Rafah tunnels are Hamas’ main source of weapons and that militant training camps are often built near civilian areas, endangering the lives of ordinary Gazans.

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