Israel-Palestine Escalation
Israel was hit by an unprecedented rocket attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7, with Hamas movement's troops infiltrating border areas. On October 8, the Israeli government announced that it had invoked Article 40 of the Basic Law, which means the country was officially in a state of war.

Experts Slam BBC for Biased Coverage of Gaza Escalation

© AFP 2023 JUSTIN TALLISA photograph taken on October 6, 2022 shows the BBC logo at the entrance of the BBC headquarters at Broadcasting House in central London.
A photograph taken on October 6, 2022 shows the BBC logo at the entrance of the BBC headquarters at Broadcasting House in central London. - Sputnik Africa, 1920, 25.11.2023
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Deprived of impartiality and professionalism in covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, BBС has turned into a "yellow press," experts told Sputnik.
A group of BBC journalists has accused the UK broadcaster of bias and double standards in covering the escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, arguing that more attention is paid to the Jewish state’s victims.
In a letter released earlier this week, the journalists in particular made it clear that they would like to know when the number of casualties among Palestinians would be "high enough for our editorial stance to change."
"I do agree that the British Broadcasting Corporation is obviously biased," London-based foreign affairs analyst Adriel Kasonta told Sputnik, referring to the current escalation of the Palestine-Israel conflict.

"It [the BBC] is actively dehumanizing the other side of the conflict. And I would even go further by saying that there is only one side of the conflict, which is the Palestinian minority, which is occupied by the Israelis. We know about the actions of Israeli settlers who are actively pushing the Palestinian people from their territories," Kasonta pointed out.

He added that for him, saying that the BBC is humanizing or paying more attention to the Jewish state’s casualties in the current conflict is “very obvious.”
He recalled that there were certain attempts from the very beginning of the conflict, when "mainstream media headlines were right, were going something along ‘Hamas- Israel war’ instead of ‘Palestine-Israel war’."
"The devil is in the details and the detail is very apparent to the public, which can't any longer be deceived by the manipulations of the mainstream media. The accusations are right, are correct," the analyst said.

When asked about the reasons for this one-sided coverage of the conflict by the BBC, he underscored that from the very beginning of this armed standoff, "the collective West pledged to reassure Israel that they have a carte-blanche when it comes to committing the genocide because we have to call a spade a spade. What the Israeli government and [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu is doing in Gaza is the genocide."

Kasonta added that the general public knows what is happening in Gaza, which he said "has been proved by the numerous protests all over the world, in London, in the United States and other Western countries and in Arab nations."
"So we know that the general public is outraged by the fact that the mainstream media is blatantly lying and somehow whitewashing and giving the coverage a cover-up," according to him.
President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. - Sputnik Africa, 1920, 22.11.2023
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The analyst was echoed by Lebanese reporter and journalist Hussein Izzedin, who slammed the UK broadcaster as “yellow press” that “has lost the spirit of real journalism due to its biased approach to events taking place in Palestine and beyond.”

"The media should be impartial and fair, in accordance with the principles of journalism, but today we see the BBC turning the victim into an executioner and a terrorist and a killer - into a humane being who is allegedly defending himself," Izzedin told Sputnik, dubbing the broadcaster’s actions "a policy of blinding public opinion."

He insisted that what the BBC is doing now will mark “a new black spot on its longstanding history of intransigence and a complete lack of objectivity, as if the broadcaster was a party to this conflict.”
According to Izzedin, the BBC is unable to brief the public on "the reality of the latest developments” and even more, the broadcaster is trying to muzzle those professional journalists who consider objectivity a matter of humanity."
He lambasted the BBC as a broadcaster that “has lost its objectivity and professionalism and has become “yellow press run from clandestine rooms.”
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