The BBC have chosen a bizarre angle to report on the news of the unfolding debacle over US/Israel-backed humanitarian aid into Palestine. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is an ostensibly independent, but Israeli- and US-backed organisation who plans to distribute aid in the Gaza strip.
However, other humanitarian organisations, including the UN, have issued a blistering rebuke as to the independence of GHF. There are further questions over the organisations ability to address an Israeli-manufactured famine.
On top of all this, Israeli forces have repeatedly shot at Palestinians seeking aid from GHF. Many have died, with many more wounded. And what does the BBC do?
Lead with a headline that reads:
Crowds overrun US-backed group’s new aid distribution site in Gaza
BBC News bias for Israel – again
There’s no mention of how Israel have manufactured food and resource scarcity by systematically destroying life-sustaining systems. There’s no reference to the questions asked about GHF at the highest possible levels of humanitarian work. And, there’s certainly no mention of Israelis slaughtering Palestinians as they come to collect the aforementioned aid.
Often, bias in reporting is about what story isn’t covered, as much as what story is covered. It’s only in the first sentence that BBC News addresses the controversies with GHF:
Thousands of Palestinians have overrun an aid distribution site in Gaza set up by a controversial US and Israeli-backed group, a day after it began working there.
Then, presumably in an oblique reference to Israeli forces slaughtering starving Palestinians, they report:
The Israeli military said troops nearby fired warning shots.
The above reporting from the BBC was first published on 27 May. However, by that stage it was already clear – via both testimony and video recordings – that Israel was not only firing warning shots, but shooting to kill aid seekers.
‘Full of lies’
At this stage of Israel’s genocide, taking any kind of comment from their military without providing independent evidence is not only terrible journalism, it’s immoral. In April 2025, fifteen members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society and Civil Defence were murdered by Israeli forces. There have been numerous investigations and reports from independent organisations who have looked into the matter. Whilst Israel insisted that these deaths were a result of “professional failures” it was plainly evident that Israel was simply continuing its indiscriminate killing of Palestinians. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Israel’s report was:
full of lies.
The UN humanitarian chief, Jonathan Whittall, said Israel’s report represented an erosion of norms:
A lack of real accountability undermines international law and makes the world a more dangerous place.
Without accountability, we risk continuing to watch atrocities unfolding, and the norms designed to protect us all, eroding.
Medics, and for that matter aid workers, are always easily identifiable and these paramedics in particular were gunned down while in their uniforms. It has been factually proved that Israel lied. And, not just once or twice – but routinely. So much so, that it’s a core part of their military operations to lie and obfuscate. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Najar reported how, despite repeated accounts demonstrating Israel knowingly and willingly slaughtered the paramedics, Western media remained unmoved by facts:
much of the Western media reported Israel’s version first – “Israel says …”, “the IDF states …”, “a military source tells …”. These carefully worded lines carry more weight than the blood-stained uniforms of the Red Crescent. More than the evidence. More than the truth.
This is not new. This is not an isolated mistake.
This is a system.
A system in which Palestinians are presumed guilty.
Najar demonstrates exactly how dehumanisation of Palestinians is at the core of Western complicity:
A system in which hospitals must prove they are hospitals, schools must prove they are schools and children must prove they are not human shields. A system in which our existence is treated as a threat – one that must be justified, explained, verified – before anyone will mourn us.
This is what dehumanisation looks like.
Choices for BBC News – Israel’s lies or…?
The BBC News article in question does go into detail in the body of the article about the controversy over Israel and GHF. However, in presenting the Israeli military as a legitimate journalistic source, and by framing the article with a muddied angle that waters down accountability, they have made a choice to subtly but firmly prop up Israeli propaganda.
Eleven prominent humanitarian aid organisations have signed an open letter to call GHF:
a project led by politically connected Western security and military figures, coordinated in tandem with the Israeli government, and launched while the people of Gaza remain under total siege.
They forcefully state that:
This initiative is not a genuine humanitarian effort. It is a smokescreen and, as UN Humanitarian Chief Tom Fletcher has said, “a cynical sideshow” for a deeply flawed and dangerous attempt to rebrand the delivery of aid in Gaza while the Israeli government continues to impose a blockade, bomb civilians, and block life-saving assistance. Aid does not need rebranding. It needs to be allowed in.
The Problem is Not Logistics. It Is Intentional Starvation.
Acting UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Sigrid Kaag, described the amount of aid GHF have the capacity to distribute as a:
lifeboat after the ship has sunk.
The criticism of GHF couldn’t bemore comprehensive, nor come from more expert sources:
The UN and other humanitarian organisations have refused to work with the GHF on the basis that it would compromise values and put their teams and those receiving aid at risk.
They have said the GHF can be used by Israel to forcibly displace the population by requiring them to move near a few distribution hubs or else face starvation. The UN has also opposed the use of facial recognition to vet those receiving aid.
And, just days ago the head of GHF resigned, saying:
I am proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza.
However, it is clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence, which I will not abandon.
Not enough for the BBC
BBC News have covered the problems with Israel and GHF elsewhere. However, they have made repeated choices to dehumanise Palestinians and to unquestioningly publish Israeli propaganda. They have made a choice to, as an institution, position Israeli lives as inherently worth more than Palestinian lives.
After all, it is a choice to describe a starving and besieged population only as “crowds” that “overrun” the meagre aid Israel allow into the area. There’s no mention in the headline of Israeli forces shooting at a crowd that they’ve trapped, terrorised, and starved for months without end.
In its ever-present drive to be unbiased, the BBC aims for a goal that cannot be achieved. It’s a juvenile understanding of bias that positions reporting on Israel’s genocide as one that involves equally covering both ‘sides.’ How can there be ‘sides’ when Israel is extending a genocide on Palestinians, after decades of dominating Palestinians with settler colonialism?
Featured image via screengrab
