LONDON, United Kingdom — The BBC on Wednesday defended its reporting of an incident in which Hamas authorities claimed Palestinians were killed near a Gaza aid center, after the White House accused the broadcaster of taking “the word” of the terror group.
Gaza’s Hamas-controlled civil defense agency said Israeli gunfire killed at least 31 people on Sunday near the US-backed aid center.
The Israeli military, however, denied its troops had fired on civilians in or around the center, and both it and the aid center’s administrator accused Hamas of sowing false rumors.
Responding to a question about the incident, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday that the BBC had to “correct and take down” its story about the incident.
“The administration is aware of those reports and we are currently looking into the veracity of them because, unfortunately, unlike some in the media, we don’t take the word of Hamas with total truth,” she said.
“We like to look into it when they speak, unlike the BBC, who had multiple headlines,” she said, citing stories that gave different death tolls.
“And then, oh, wait, they had to correct and take down their entire story, saying ‘We reviewed the footage and couldn’t find any evidence of anything,'” she added.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry shared a clip of Leavitt’s remarks on X, along with the comment “Maybe the BBC should stop spreading fake news to vilify Israel.”
But the BBC said the White House claims were not accurate and that it had not removed its story.
“The claim the BBC took down a story after reviewing footage is completely wrong. We did not remove any story and we stand by our journalism,” it said in a statement.
It said headlines giving varying death tolls were “totally normal” journalistic practice due to the story being “updated throughout the day with the latest fatality figures as they came in from various sources.”
It said the death tolls were always “clearly attributed, from the first figure of 15 from medics, through the 31 killed from the Hamas-run health ministry to the final Red Cross statement of ‘at least 21,'” it added.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its field hospital in Rafah received 179 people, including 21 pronounced dead on arrival.
Leavitt also criticized the Washington Post for its reporting of the incident.
The Post deleted one article over sourcing issues “because it and early versions of the article didn’t meet Post fairness standards.”
“The article and headline were updated on Sunday evening making it clear that there was no consensus about who was responsible.”
The BBC has previously faced criticism of its coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict. In February, it apologized and admitted “serious flaws” over a documentary — “Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone” — after it emerged its 13-year-old narrator was the son of a senior Hamas figure.
There has been a string of violent incidents related to the Gaza aid centers operated by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
On Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, the IDF opened fire at Palestinians who had approached troops after straying off a pre-approved path to a Rafah distribution site.
Aside from the 31 deaths Hamas claimed on Sunday, three people were reportedly killed and 35 were wounded in the Monday incident; and 27 were reportedly killed and 90 were wounded in the Tuesday incident.
The figures were not verified, and the IDF asserted on Tuesday that Hamas was inflating them.
The GHF said it would not open its centers on Wednesday as it works to improve security arrangements in, around, and on the access routes to its sites.
The UN and aid organizations warned for weeks that such incidents would result from forcing Gaza’s entire population of two million people to travel long distances and pass through IDF lines in order to reach the GHF’s distribution sites.
Israel and the US have promoted the GHF model, arguing that it can effectively box Hamas out of the aid distribution process after the terror group managed to divert much of the aid that was coming in through the UN and other international organizations — charges those groups have denied.