BBC and World Media Ignore Rocket Attacks on Israel, but Report on IDF Responses

A factory in Sderot hit by Hamas rockets. Photo: IDF.

At around 2:30 on the afternoon of August 21, terrorists based in the Gaza Strip fired a missile at the Western Negev town of Sderot.

According to one report, “The rocket landed between two homes, near a college and the local train station. Locals said it was ‘a miracle’ that nobody was injured.”

The IDF responded with strikes on Hamas infrastructure in Beit Hanoun, and later carried out additional strikes.

The BBC News English-language website did not provide any coverage of the missile attack against Israeli civilians.

The BBC Arabic website, however, produced two reports — here and here — about the Israeli response to the missile fire. The second report and the website’s homepage both used a photograph of a water tower allegedly damaged during the Israeli response to the missile attack.

However, as noted at the Israellycool blog, photographs showing the same damage to the same water tower were published by AFP nearly a year ago.

This latest missile attack from the Gaza Strip is the eighth such incident to have taken place so far in 2016. The BBC has not reported on any of those attacks on its English-language website, but has covered the Israeli response to most of them on its Arabic-language site.

January 1: BBC News ignores Gaza missile attacks, BBC Arabic reports Israeli response.

January 24: BBC News ignores Gaza missile attack again — in English.

March 11: BBC News continues to ignore missile attacks on Israelis — in English.

March 15: Missile attack not reported.

May 6: Patchy and selective BBC News reporting of Gaza border incidents.

May 25: BBC News fails to report another Gaza missile attack to English-speakers.

July 1: Another Gaza missile attack ignored by the BBC.

August 21: Missile attack not reported in English, response reported in Arabic.

The same pattern of reporting has been evident since the end of the conflict between Israel and terrorists in the Gaza Strip in 2014, meaning that English-speaking BBC audiences — including its funding public — are not receiving the services pledged to them in the corporation’s public purposes.