How the BBC’s Yolande Knell Covered an Accidental Killing by the IDF

Like the Guardian, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, the BCC reports on Israel and the Palestinians in a manner that must please the rais in Ramallah, Mahmoud Abbas. More on the latest example of anti-Israel bias at Bush House can be found here: “BBC Distorts Accidental Palestinian Death to Attack Israel,” by Hadar Sela, Algemeiner, June 12, 2023:

On the evening of June 1, Palestinian terrorists opened fire on the civilian community of Halamish:

The Israel Defense Forces said that following an initial investigation, it appeared two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on the West Bank settlement of Neve Tzuf (also known as Halamish), near the Palestinian town of Nabi Saleh on Thursday night and that troops stationed at the adjacent army post on Route 465 returned fire.

Tragically, two Palestinian civilians were caught in the crossfire:

Moments after the exchange, a Palestinian man and his child appeared at the entrance to Neve Tzuf with serious injuries to seek medical help.

It appeared that “as a result of the gunfire by the [Israeli] forces, two Palestinians were hurt,” the military said in a statement, adding that it “regrets the harm” to noncombatants. A probe into the incident was underway, it said. […]

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said its medics treated the three-year-old boy in critical condition and the man in his forties in serious condition. The toddler was rushed to the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan by military helicopter, while the man was taken by the Palestinian Red Crescent to a hospital in the West Bank. The Israeli hospital said the young boy remained in critical condition.

The BBC News website did not report that incident at the time.

On June 5, the child died of his injuries. Later that day, the BBC News website published a report by Yolande Knell titled, “Palestinian toddler shot by Israeli soldiers dies.”

As with that headline, the report’s first two paragraphs fail to explain that the shooting was accidental:

A three-year-old Palestinian boy has died four days after being shot in the head by Israeli forces.

Mohammed Tamimi and his father were shot while leaving their home in Nabi Saleh, in the occupied West Bank.

Clearly, it would not have been difficult to insert the word accidentally before the word “shot” in either of those two sentences.

The IDF had admitted that it was responsible for shooting the father and his son in a tragic accident. Everyone knows that the IDF does everything it can to minimize civilian casualties, including warning civilians away from targets about to be hit, by means of emailing, telephoning, leafletting, and the “knock-on-the-roof” technique. This is why British Colonel Richard Kemp calls the IDF “the world’s most moral army.” What happened here was a tragic accident. They happen in every war. But Yolande Knell repeatedly leaves out that essential adverb – “accidentally” — so as to meretriciously convey the notion that the IDF deliberately shot to kill a father and his little boy.

The report then continues:

The Israel military said its soldiers opened fire while in pursuit of two gunmen who had earlier shot at a nearby Jewish settlement.

In a statement after the incident, the military added that it regretted harm to “non-combatants.”

Four paragraphs later, readers find a qualified account of the attack that prompted the soldiers to return fire: [emphasis added]

“The Israeli military, which has a post just outside Nabi Saleh, previously released grainy video which apparently shows two figures shooting guns. It said the shooting towards the settlement of Halamish – also known as Neveh Tzuf – lasted “several minutes.”

No, the video was not “grainy.” It does not “apparently” show two figures shooting guns – that “apparently” added by Yolande Knell is meant to cast doubt on the IDF’s version of events – it does show two figures shooting.

It [the IDF] said that its soldiers responded with live fire, causing two Palestinians to be injured.

“The [Israeli military] regrets harm to non-combatants and is committed to doing everything in its power to prevent such incidents. The incident is under review,” it stated….

While reports at the time of the incident noted two people were injured, Knell claims to have found a third, and amplifies his version of the events:

Palestinian activist and journalist Bilal Tamimi – who was also injured – said that the Israeli army was waiting to ambush a car at the entrance to Nabi Saleh and opened fire as it approached.

According to reports at Haaretz (Hebrew) and other outlets, Bilal Tamimi’s injury was not sustained in the same incident in which the father and son were shot.

Bilal Tamimi, who we know falsely claimed to have been injured at the same time as the father and son (his injury was from earlier incident) is also the only source for the story about the IDF soldiers waiting to ambush a car at the entrance to Nabi Saleh. Since no other Palestinians confirmed his story of an ambush – if they had, Yolande Knell would certainly have quoted them – shouldn’t we doubt Tamimi’s tale?

And what do we know about this Bilal Tamimi?

Readers are not informed whether the “activist and journalist” Bilal Tamimi quoted by Knell is the person of the same name who, together with his brother Bassem, ran a “news agency” called Tamimi Press.

That organization produced and distributed footage and images from the weekly violent riots in Nabi Saleh (with Bassem Tamimi being one of their main organizers), often featuring children from their clan such as Bassem’s daughter Ahed Tamimi.

Bassem Tamimi turns out to run a propaganda factory (he calls it a “news agency”) that distributes videos of riots that Tamimi, among others, organizes weekly in Nabi Saleh. That might make one hesitate to accept his story about a deliberate IDF ambush of presumably innocent Palestinians.

Obviously, it would have been helpful for readers to be made aware of such background before Knell went on to describe those weekly riots as “demonstrations”…

Had Yolande Knell wanted, she could have looked at the videos made by the Tamimi brothers, and she would have seen that at Nabi Saleh, the Palestinians were not demonstrating, but rioting. There is a difference.

Here is more from Yolande Knell:

The settlement of Halamish was set up in the 1970s and has long been a source of friction with Palestinian villagers living close by.

Knell adopts the viewpoint of the Palestinians: the Jewish settlement is the “source of friction.” But every Jew living in the West Bank, no matter how quietly, on land that may have been owned by Jews for generations, is a “source of friction” to Palestinians. Israel’s very existence is a “source of friction” that the Palestinians want to remove “from the river to the sea.”

The Israelis see things differently. The “friction” is generated by the local Palestinians who want to drive the Israelis out of the village of Halamish – no longer a “settlement” — they have been living in for a half-century, on land acquired legally. One Palestinian technique to make life unpleasant and dangerous for “the Jews” in Halamish is to stage violent riots every Friday.

Yolande Knell again:

For several years, Friday demonstrations took place in Nabi Saleh, with local activists protesting against the confiscation of the village’s lands and the takeover of its spring.

Yolande Knell uncritically accepts the Palestinian claim that the Jews confiscated part of their land, and took over their spring. She doesn’t bother to quote the Israeli version of what actually happened at Nabi Saleh and Halamish. For example, if “the Jews” had taken over Nabi Saleh’s spring fifty years ago, how could that village’s Palestinians have survived? And are these Palestinians really just “activists” protesting non-violently, or are they engaged in violent riots, as they apparently keep trying to force their way into the Jewish village, and are held back only by the IDF?

These [riots] would often lead to violent confrontations with Israeli soldiers using tear gas and rubber bullets to block their path.

Interestingly, Knell’s background on the history of the area does not include any mention of previous terror attacks in or near Halamish.

There have been several terror attacks on Jews in Halamish in the last few years : three members of the Salomon family were stabbed to death, another resident was injured in a drive-by shooting, an IDF soldier was wounded in a ramming attack, and four IDF soldiers were shot in a separate incident just outside Halamish. Shouldn’t Knell have informed her BBC audience of the extensive history of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers in, or just outside, Halamish? Doesn’t that context matter?

Knell uses the BBC’s now standard unhelpful presentation of Palestinian fatalities which fails to adequately clarify that the overwhelming majority of those killed were members of terrorist organizations, or males engaged in acts of terror or violence at the time:

Since the start of the year, some 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The figures include militants as well as civilians….

Instead of referring unhelpfully to “the 150 Palestinians…killed” that “include militants as well as civilians,” why didn’t Yolande Knell explain that at least 110 of the 150 dead Palestinians have been confirmed as “terrorists” (and not, as she would have us believe, “militants”). Wouldn’t that have been important information for the BBC audience to have?

In addition, 23 people on the Israeli side have been killed – including two foreigners and a Palestinian worker – in violence related to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. One of those killed was a member of the Israeli security forces.

Of those 23 people killed “on the Israeli side,” twenty were Israeli civilians, two were foreign civilians, and only one was an IDF soldier. Clearly, the Palestinians were trying to kill civilians, while Israel tries always to avoid killing them.

On both sides, there are children among the dead. Mohammed Tamimi was the youngest Palestinian to have been killed in the West Bank.

Notably, the youngest Israeli children murdered in Palestinian terror attacks this year were not even named in BBC coverage, let alone pictured.

Note that Knell mentions by name the “youngest Palestinian” to have been killed, though she leaves out the critical adverb “accidentally.” But she doesn’t name even one of the “youngest Israeli children” killed. They were two brothers, Asher and Menachem Paley, 6 and 8, murdered quite deliberately in a car ramming.

Knell ends her report with another well-worn BBC mantra:

Some 700,000 settlers currently live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Settlements are considered illegal under international law although Israel disputes that.

Which “international law” is it that is violated when Jews settle on land that formed part of the Palestine Mandate’s territory? Doesn’t Article 6 of the Mandate call for “close settlement by Jews on the land”? Which land? All the land — see the Mandate maps — “from the river to the sea.” Or does Yolande Knell think that the League of Nation’s Mandate for Palestine, which was intended to create a Jewish state, can simply be ignored? On what basis?

Yolande Knell is well past her sell-by date. Can’t the BBC finally put paid to her nonsense and lies? Please, give her a rest. And thereby spare the rest of us.