From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, June 4, 2025
BBC defends coverage of killings near Gaza aid hub after White House criticism
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The BBC defends its reporting of an incident in which Palestinians were killed near a Gaza aid center on Sunday, after the White House accused the British broadcaster of taking “the word of Hamas.”
Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency said Israeli gunfire killed at least 31 people on Sunday near the US- and Israel-backed aid center in Rafah. The IDF acknowledged firing “warning shots” at Palestinian suspects who approached forces around a kilometer away from the aid site, hours before the facility opened for the distribution of food packages.
Responding to a question about the incident, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said yesterday 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.
But the BBC says 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 says in a statement.
It notes that headlines giving varying death tolls are “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 says 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 adds.
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 Times of Israel Community.