September 2, 2025 • 48 mins
Children shot at point-blank range in Gaza — a BBC documentary uncovers evidence of deliberate sniper fire, yet it’s buried deep on their website. Brian Gerrish and Patrick Henningsen discuss why Stephanie Hegarty’s findings matter, and what they reveal about war crimes hidden in plain sight.
Write-up with links: https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/two-girls-shot-in-gaza
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Good afternoon. I'm here in Studio 2 at the UK
column and I'm delighted today to be joined by Patrick
Henningson. Welcome, Patrick.
Great to be with you, Brian. Thank you.
Well, we were having a discussion a couple of days ago
about a very interesting BBCI think we've called it a mini
(00:28):
documentary by a lady called Stephanie Hegarty.
And it was on the deeply troubling subject of children
who had been shot in Gaza. And really the meat of the story
was that many of these children very young, some of them 2-3
years old, but up to the age of 12.
(00:48):
And they had clearly been shot by snipers in that they suffered
injuries to their heads and or chests.
And of course for a small child,for a small child, this is a
small target. And as we will hear, the numbers
of these children indicate that something very, very untoward
(01:10):
was was actually happening. Now what I found interesting
with this video documentary was that I simply found the video
introductory image at the bottomof an article on the BBC
website. There wasn't any direct text to
do with this production by Stephanie Haggerty.
(01:34):
I found that very strange. Nevertheless, I watched the
documentary. I found it to be very compelling
and it was only later that I discovered that there was text
that went with the documentary. But it wasn't placed under Gaza,
which would be the natural placefor it to appear under the BB CS
headline News on the War in Gaza.
(01:56):
It was actually under World News.
And then you had to look for thesubsection of the Middle East.
So I'm going to say, Patrick, that my brain said, it's almost
as if this has been pushed away to one side on the BBC website.
I don't know how you'd react to that.
Well, I think it's interesting you look at the coverage of the
(02:17):
BBC in particular and this, I believe this report was produced
under the banner of BBC World Service.
And I also noticed something about the reporting on BBC World
Service is slightly different than what we would call general
BBC. Same with CNNCNN World tends to
veer a little bit towards the truth in, in some of its
(02:39):
narratives, whereas CNN HQ in America is heavily
propagandised. Things are curated very, very
carefully. And I think I, I see some
similarities with the BBC, but the, what you say is true is
that this stuff gets compartmentalised.
It's in the BBC universe. But it I mean, I think this is
(03:00):
an extraordinary piece of investigative journalism and it
really should occupy, it should be, you know, the number one
national story. Major, major headline.
And yet this lady is with her team, has done this.
I think what extraordinary pieceof investigation it stands.
We're going to watch it and share that with our viewers and
(03:22):
listeners in just a moment. But yes, should really be a
major headline with a lot of questions to be asked,
principally by the Israeli Defence Forces, but also the
Israeli government itself as to how so many children came to be
shot. And many of them in areas where
(03:42):
there was no actual fighting taking place.
And some of them were actually travelling on some of these safe
corridors that have been identified by the Israelis in
order to allow people in Gaza tomove from one section to a safer
sectional or possibly to a location where there was food or
(04:02):
aid going to be provided. Yeah.
So let's have a look at the clip.
It's about 14 minutes long. I will say to the audience, it
is very harrowing. It's it's a very tragic subject.
I think it's been handled very carefully.
But I think the average person will find this a trouble,
(04:23):
troubling video clip. Nevertheless, if we were to
understand what's going on in Gaza, particularly around the
death of young children, we needto watch it.
A man and a small child are lying on a street in Gaza City.
In his final moments, the man reaches out to touch the child.
(04:50):
This video was broadcast on Qatari network Al Arabi TV in
late December 2023. The man and child had been shot
by Israeli snipers, the report claimed, but there were no
details of what exactly happenedor who they were.
For months we tried to find out more about them, trolling social
media and reaching out to contacts on the ground.
(05:12):
A comment under a social media post named as St and a business
in the video, which helped us togeolocate it, and we could
verify independently that it wasHamid St in Gaza City.
We found a name for the man in the video, Mohammed Al
Majdalawi, and traced his death certificate as well as that of
his daughter, 2 year old Leanne.Leanne's case is just one of
(05:48):
over 160 reports we've compiled of children who were shot in
this war in Gaza. The incidents we looked at ran
from the beginning of the war all the way up to July this
year. Israel bans foreign media from
entering Gaza independently to report, and destruction and
displacement also make gatheringdetails difficult.
(06:09):
We struggled to find Leanne's family and it wasn't until a
ceasefire earlier this year, when people could move more
freely, that we managed to reachthem.
Hello. Hello.
This is Leanne's sister Shahid. She was 12 years old and with
her mom Soraya, her teenage brother Abood, their father
(06:29):
Muhammad and Layan. That day, Shahid, Abood and
Soraya told us what they saw when Muhammad and Layan were
killed. The family say they were
sheltering in Gaza City when thearea was bombed by the IDF and
they were ordered to evacuate. On the 9th of November 2023, at
around midday, they told us theyleft this school and travelled
(06:52):
down this street, turning left onto a Mead St.
There was no fighting at the time, they said.
As they passed this junction, Shahed says she saw a tank up
the street to her left. Shahid says she and her brother
(07:25):
ran back to help and realised their father had been shot.
She tried to grab Leon, who wouldn't let go of her father
before they were shot at again. They fled and never saw Muhammad
(07:49):
or Leon again. This image was taken before the
war, but we've obtained and analysed a satellite image taken
2 hours before the shooting. We don't have permission to
publish it, so we've recreated it.
In this animation on the satellite we can see an IDF
presence 280 metres north of thefamily and we can see a tank
(08:10):
along the same street where Shahid says she saw 1-2 hours
later. Military analyst Stuart Ray
examined the image and pointed out these tanks, armoured
vehicles and military diggers, these defensive sandbanks and
the fact this location has the tallest buildings in the
immediate area, which suggests this was an IDF fortified
(08:30):
position. He said that as well as tanks, a
position like this would have infantry.
There are three clips in the video we've seen of Muhammad and
Leon. The first indicates where they
likely fell. In the second, drag marks show
that the bodies have been moved to behind this building.
(08:50):
In the last clip, they've been placed beside each other once
again. We showed these videos to three
forensic pathologists with experience in war casualties.
Each said it's evident that Muhammad and Layan were killed
by gunfire. Professor Derek Pounder is the
former head of pathology at the University of Dundee.
Overall, it's most likely that asingle gunshot has struck the
(09:14):
infant, passed through the infant into the man, causing him
to collapse and killing both of them.
What is it that you can see in this video, which isn't very
clear, that tells you that? There's no evidence of any blast
injury with flailing of the armsand legs.
There's not obvious large injuries to the bodies.
(09:35):
The video is a relatively poor quality, but we can see what a
likely blood stains to the man'sleft shoulder and chest area.
High velocity gunshot wounds from military rifles leave a
small entrance hole and cause devastating internal injuries.
We presented our findings to theIDF and they said IDF soldiers
(09:56):
operate against terrorist organisations in complex urban
environments and unintended or erroneous harm may occur in the
course of combat. They added that whenever there
is reasonable suspicion that IDFforces acted contrary to IDF
values and orders, the incident will be reviewed and handled
with the necessary seriousness. They said the details of this
(10:18):
case have been recorded and willbe examined by the competent
authorities. In some of the cases we looked
at like Leon's children were allegedly shot while fleeing
battle zones, but many others were shot while playing outside
their tents in humanitarian zones and some in areas the IDF
themselves had marked as evacuation corridors.
(10:45):
In a case we first came across on social media, 6 year old Mira
Tambura was shot in the back of the chest, according to her
father, close to an Israeli checkpoint on the Salaheddin Rd,
an IDF marked evacuation route on the 18th of November 2023.
Her father rushed her to Alauda Hospital where the hospital
director told us they pronouncedher dead earlier that day.
(11:09):
The Tambora say they were screened at this IDF checkpoint
after fleeing northern Gaza. They were just over a kilometre
down the road when Mira was shot.
(11:36):
In this satellite image from theday before, we can see the IDF
position at the checkpoint. This video posted a few days
earlier shows the containers andbuildings we can see by
satellite. Our BBC colleague Jihad al
Mashrawi was in Gaza until February 2024 and he passed
(11:57):
through the checkpoint with his family two days before Mira.
And on this. Satellite.
(12:20):
Image We can see several of those buildings on the east of
the road, as well as these Sam barriers in the direction that
side pointed to where he believes the shock came from.
At the time Mira was shot, we found no reports of clashes with
Hamas in the vicinity of the checkpoint, which reduces the
likelihood that she was caught up in crossfire.
(12:52):
When we put the allegations madein this case to the IDF, they
said an allegation of harm in and of itself does not
necessarily indicate a violationof the law.
That said, whenever there is reasonable suspicion that IDF
forces acted concrete IDF valuesand orders, the incident will be
reviewed and handled with the necessary seriousness, they
(13:13):
added. The details of this case have
been recorded and will be examined by the competent
authorities. Since the beginning of the war,
doctors have been raising concerns about children being
shot in Gaza. We spoke to 30 doctors and
nurses and reviewed hundreds of photos and videos, as well as
scans, medical notes and journalentries that they shared.
(13:35):
Some of these medics said they saw many more children with
gunshot injuries. However, as we compiled cases,
we only included those they had documented.
Professor Nizam Mahmoud is a retired NHS consultant and
transplant surgeon. He was in Gaza for a month in
August 2024. We saw a significant number of
(13:57):
shootings either with bullets tothe head or chest, including to
children. So most of the gunshot wounds to
the head were dealt with by the neurosurgeons.
I saw some of the X rays. So a bullet literally lodged in
the brain of a three year old child.
How many cases do you think you saw of children who were shot?
(14:18):
I lost count during the time I was there.
I would say probably 20 plus. We also spoke to human rights
researchers working on the ground and collated and verified
media reports. Of the 168 cases we compiled, we
found 95 instances of a child shot in the head or the chest.
(14:39):
More than 2/3 of these children were under 12 years old.
In 59 cases, we were able to obtain an account from witnesses
of what happened, either directly or via doctors and
human rights researchers. In 57 of those, it was alleged
that the IDF shot the child, andin two that the children were
allegedly shot by Palestinians, one by celebratory gunfire, the
(15:02):
other in a gang conflict. For the remaining 36 cases, we
have no account of what happened.
Without access to Gaza to report, gathering details on
each incident is extremely difficult.
Children have come into our field hospital with gunshot
wounds. Across 20 months of fighting,
children have been killed and injured in their homes, whether
(15:23):
they're staying in tents or walking in the streets.
And the world simply cannot accept this type of warfare,
this kind of impact on children.If the world accepts it,
whatever comes next will be evenworse.
While we have no proof of intent, Mira and Leon's cases
raise serious questions about how the IDF operates in Gaza.
(15:46):
This week, Israeli human rights group B'tselem reported on the
absence of any rules of engagement in Gaza for Israeli
forces. This video was broadcast in
April on Israeli TV. It's an IDF commander speaking
to his troops, telling them to shoot at everyone they see.
(16:11):
Kay was a reservist in Gaza in early 2024.
I asked if he was surprised to hear that so many children had
been shot in the head, allegedlyby Israeli troops.
I'm not super surprised. I'm not sure that there exists
soldiers who would do that. Do you think there's a lack of
accountability? I would definitely say there's a
(16:32):
lack of accountability. Kay didn't witness very young
children being shot, but he described several incidents in
which his unit killed unarmed people, including two boys he
described as young teenagers. There's a humanitarian Rd where
Gazans can go from north to South and the general rule was
(16:52):
on this road. It's a safe zone and no shooting
anyone you see off the humanitarian Rd Shoot, shoot to
kill. That's what we were told our
commander qualify that. Of course, if it's a woman or a
child, don't shoot. Try to detain them.
Don't be stupid. As time went on, the stakes kept
getting higher and higher. It was just very much nothing
(17:15):
matters, that's it. And then ultimately, when we
lost some people in a firefight,it was just it.
Destroy everything. Kill everyone you see.
We put the soldiers allegations to the IDF and they said the IDF
remains committed to minimising harm to civilians as much as
possible. 3 experts in international law looked at our
(17:37):
findings. They told us they raised serious
questions over whether these shootings were a result of
recklessness, negligence or wilful attack.
Under international law, professional soldiers have the
obligation to check before they take that shot that what they're
shooting at is a legal enemy combatant and not a civilian.
(17:59):
So when so many children are getting shot, and especially in
the head, that tells us that something is seriously wrong.
Of the 168 cases we looked at, we know that at least 90
(18:20):
children died, but because of the damage to Gaza's medical
system, it's hard for us to determine how many ultimately
succumbed to their injuries. According to the Mass Run Health
Ministry, at least 50,000 children have been killed or
injured in Gaza since the beginning of this war.
The families we spoke to say they have no hope for justice
(18:40):
for their children. Some weren't even able to bury
their bodies. Layan and Muhammad's remains lay
on Hamid's street for days as Shahid, Abboud and Soraya fled
from danger in the chaos of thisbrutal war.
And until we contacted them overa year later, they had no idea
(19:02):
that this video existed. Well, Patrick, that does take
some watching, doesn't it? Because it's got a very soft
feel to the style of the documentary.
It hasn't got any of the sort ofrazzmatazz that the BBC often
likes to bring into its documentary style.
(19:24):
So it's very a very soft measured, calculated, it leads
you through the story, but the facts speak from themselves.
So they investigated 160 cases overall where children have been
shot. In 95, those 160 cases, the
(19:44):
children have actually been shotin the head and all the chest.
So that's very direct targeting of, as I've said, often small
children. And in 57 of the cases, they
actually had witnesses who were prepared to say yes, they were
shot by the Israeli Defence Forces.
(20:05):
As opposed to some of the cases where people were able to admit
that there was fighting going on.
So it's possible mistakes were made.
And I think in at least one caseit might have been possibly two
children were shot as a result of celebratory gunfire.
So people have been firing off randomly in celebration of some
(20:28):
success on the battlefield and that they'd been a casualty as a
result. But this is a very large number
of children and I think, I thinkthis is where the the story for
me got extremely interesting. Yeah, there's no denying it.
There should be no doubt at all that what the this this
investigative piece shows. There's a systemic trend here
(20:51):
that's undeniable, and that is the systematic targeting of
children with head shots, you know, to children playing
outside their tents in areas that they were driven to by the
IDF. So there's no doubt that if they
don't explicitly come out and make these conclusions, but it's
(21:11):
evident in the way that evidenceis presented.
So I would I would be led to believe here that the people
producing this report, includingStephanie Haggardi and her team,
are coming to the same conclusions.
We are, of course, we're just more we, we can be more
forthright in how we're and moreoutspoken about how we're sort
of, you know, saying what, what it is.
(21:32):
But you know, you remember the Syria coverage, remember back in
all the outrage from some of these images with the White
Helmets and little Omron, the dusty boy in the back of the
ambulance. And that was front and centre on
every tabloid. I remember going out to the news
stands in in the UK and look, Daily Mail, Guardian, Times, all
running the same image of the dusty boy.
(21:55):
And this just galvanised public opinion that we must get rid of
Bashar al Assad because he's just so inherently evil and
Assad must go, let's get behind the war effort.
This is the type of report whereyou should have that type of
public reaction. This should be a game changer.
So what I'm looking at, Brian Ear's it, it hasn't been
(22:16):
elevated to that degree. We can, of course, you know,
discuss why. I think we both know why.
But so there's unlikely there's going to be any policy change as
a result of this excellent pieceof journalism.
And that's the problem because especially coming from the bbci
mean, when does the BBC ever do anything that would pushes the
(22:39):
government foreign policy back in the other direction and
causes a, a a change of heart inWestminster?
Very rare. But this, this report could do
that. I certainly can't see anything
wrong with it. I mean, look, it's pretty,
pretty clear what the conclusions are.
Yeah, it's it's very measured inthe way that it it goes through,
(23:01):
through the information. And they stress that they did
their utmost to actually get corroboration of the incidents.
And this is this is the point about witnesses coming forward.
Now you might say, well, OK, in a emotional battlefield
environment, some people might come forward and accuse the IDF
(23:22):
of doing things. But but the numbers here, 95
cases out of that 160, and we'vealready got 160 cases of
children being shot. And this can't possibly be
accidental. And the younger the child, the
smaller the target. And for a small child to be hit
(23:44):
in the head, somebody's got to be taking a very, very carefully
aimed shot. And that's going to be a, a
sniper's rifle. I, I was also interested in the
documentary that the BBC was able to use its investigatory
powers to get into Gaza to identify who the family was.
(24:05):
And the little girl in the firstinstant was called Leanne.
She was two years old and her father was Mohamed al Majid
Alwawi. And he ends up shot.
Whether he was shot and the little girl who he was clutching
to his chest was hit as a resultof that shot or the shot went
(24:27):
through the little girl, it's not clear.
But they end up on the street there and that tragic video
footage where he's obviously severely wounded and he reaches
out with his right hand to try and stroke that little girl.
Very poignant moment. But the BBC takes that footage
(24:48):
and he's able to pin down the location and he's able to then
show that Israeli units were along one of the side streets
that the family crossed and there was a tank and there were
troops. And then they actually used a
military analyst to say, well, this made sense because they
(25:08):
were high rise buildings and therefore we could expect
Israeli units to be there. And we then came to that very
interesting little bit where they were overlaying satellite
images and suddenly she says we weren't given permission to use
this footage. What would you make of that?
That was very odd because so this would have been, if my
(25:31):
understanding of this incident is correct, this would have been
late December 2023. So, you know, like, say, in the
early phases of the, what's it called a genocide in Gaza?
And So what would be so sensitive to 18 months later
that it you couldn't get clearance to show the footage
(25:53):
which they had to then go recreate using digital imagery
is just because there's 22 possibilities here. 1 is that
the Israelis were doing something they shouldn't have
been doing. And then what you would remarked
in our discussions before is that was the presence of any
Western assets and possibly military assets there.
Third option on that bit of censorship is that that got
(26:17):
spiked at the desk at the BBC's Middle East desk by some kind of
operative plant like Raffy Berg,who is the head of the Middle
East desk as a former CIA propagandist and who has been
the subject of complaints by hiscohort at the BBC for ultra bias
(26:38):
editorial decisions in favour ofIsrael.
So it was one of those possibly in my mind anyway, one of those
3 possibilities, but it doesn't make any sense 18 months after.
So I, I'm, I'm, I'm more interested like yourself, Brian,
in that because behind that decision to not allow that
(27:01):
footage to be seen in its raw form, there's some answers there
behind that, yeah. Is it because the work that
Steph, Stephanie and her team did started to show the powers
that be, whether that's the IDF or the Israeli government or the
higher level of the BBC, that ifthey continued to investigate in
(27:23):
this very careful, detailed way,using all of the available
information, which would includesatellite overlay surveillance
footage from some of the drones,that it would actually be
possible to deconstruct a lot ofwhat had taken place in the
violence? So it's it's the stack of cards
(27:46):
or the the domino. They don't want this one to fall
because if this case falls, thenall the rest of the incidents
come up to the surface. And maybe something which which
supports that line of thinking is the fact that later in that
little video, they discussed what the policy was, what the
(28:07):
rules of engagement for the Israeli troops were.
And the statement is actually they didn't seem to have any.
And then of course they used theclip of the Israeli, the IDF
commander simply saying to the to the Israeli soldiers you
shoot. So if that is true, that IDF
(28:30):
troops are not even using rules,proper rules of engagement,
which certainly NATO forces evenin Afghanistan or Iraq would
have been using a basic rule of engagement as to who they shoot
at and who they don't. Well, it's, it kind of, it kind
of makes sense, Brian, because this is a country that is an
(28:53):
occupying power, you see, and they don't have, Israel's the
only country in the world that doesn't have declared borders or
constitution. And why is that?
Well, because if they had a constitution, they'd have to
basically uphold it to. And if they had borders, they
wouldn't be able to expand and they wouldn't be able to get
away with an illegal occupation running an apartheid system,
(29:15):
obviously. So they'd probably fall short on
the rules of engagement. They did, however, have that
nice excuse, he said. In the course of our operations,
sometimes unfortunate things happen.
And let let us assure you this is being looked at by the by
competent authorities if anything goes against IDF
values. Yes, that was, we're laughing.
(29:38):
It's a very dark subject. Bit of black humour here.
Yeah, I mean, that was, that wasa pretty outrageous statement.
Our values, well, what are your values?
Are those values written down? I suspect not.
Yeah. So they basically gave the
collateral damage caveat, you know, completely devoid of the
context of the occupation. And that's an important point.
(30:01):
That's a point that's often glossed over by Western media.
And that's part of the framing of this whole issue.
And this conflict and this genocide is how it's framed.
It's framed as a war. Like these are two countries
fighting each other. It's not, it's an occupation.
And they're also, and this is this gets right down to the nub
(30:24):
of the issue, Brian here. When we're talking about the the
the US and the British and the European policy with regards to
the proscription of terrorist groups like Hamas, for instance,
or any of these Palestinian resistance groups, is that that
that that's done outside of the international law.
(30:45):
And the international law and the UN Charter is very clear
that countries under occupation have a right to defend
themselves and that armed liberation struggles fall under
a basic human right globally. And that would be the case for
us if we were under occupation, you know, military occupation or
in America or in Canada or Mexico or anywhere else.
(31:09):
So, but in this case, we don't seem to recognise that.
But it's so important in how thestory's framed.
Because of the story's framed a certain way, it gets distorted
very quickly. And then what journalists are
reporting on doesn't correspond to the reality on the ground for
the people who are experiencing it.
This is the number one disconnect that we get with our
(31:32):
mainstream media. Yeah.
And so it it, it focuses in thatthat concept that you just let's
set out that focuses us back in on actually how effective this
little 14 minute documentary was.
Because she didn't get distracted by any wider issues.
She just stayed on the case of the children being shot and they
(31:56):
took their evidence from the which is the word the.
Oh, the path Forensic. Pathologist.
Sorry, friend. Yeah.
And of course, they, they, they took information from the
forensic pathologist at university level who said, well,
there's no signs of blast injury, so destroyed limbs or
(32:20):
major wounds on the body. So even though he called, he
commented on the fact that the quality of the film footage in
in some of the shots was relatively poor in his opinion.
Yeah, there was no doubt these these children have been shot.
And then, of course, there were many actual factual photographs
(32:43):
and scans from inside hospital environments where there was no
doubt that these were gunshot injuries.
So her documentary stayed absolutely focused on the facts.
And then by the end, I'm starting to wonder, well, OK,
where has this information gone?And that little documentary clip
(33:05):
didn't really cover that. But when you read the script
that goes with it, which as I say, we found on the BBC World
News Middle East subsection page, then there was a little
bit of comments that this information had gone on to hire
agencies. UNI think was one of those.
(33:29):
But I'm very curious, where's the result?
Where where's been commenting the BBC or the newspapers about
the fact that we've got this clear track record of very young
children sniped, killed by snipers deliberately, Where's
the push back? Doesn't appear to be any.
I mean, how many? Let's just take this out of the
(33:51):
Gaza context. If this was happening in
Ukraine, how many of these headshots or fatalities of
children being shot would would raise one's eyebrows to the
point where it's a a thing, it'sa controversy, it's worthy of
headlines. I I thought about this, Patrick,
(34:12):
and my brain says 10 because youcould probably say around all of
the conflict areas, there's always going to be the chance
civilians get caught up in a firefight.
And then there's the accidental shot, which kills a very small
job, but you get above 10 and I'm thinking there's something
happening here, but the time you're up to 57, there's a bit
(34:34):
of a pattern. Get up to 100.
Yeah, they've got a major problem.
This is just the known cases that they had access to the
data. If you consider the fact that
and, and their data they're gathering here with the BBC is
from late December 2023 till July of this year, so just this
past month. So that means that there's a lot
(34:58):
of potential information and data that's been destroyed
because of a lot of the healthcare institutions in the
Gaza Ministry of Health has beenwiped out.
That same Ministry of Health that the West like to call Hamas
run Gaza Ministry of Health, thethe records, keeping everything.
This is one of the things that'scome out in the UN reports is
they don't have the infrastructure anymore to keep
(35:20):
track of of fatalities. So a lot of the stuff that could
be at least investigated at the,you know, ICU level, the first
state, let the first responder level a certain amount of
documentation with regards to the cases you're dealing with,
whether it's a shooting or whatever the a lot of the stuffs
are missing. So what do you think the true
number is just considering the scale of the desert devastation
(35:44):
and the amount of reporting? And and this too, clearly we
have a trend here out of these 160 cases with 9095 head shots
of children or chest shots, you know, really precise, we're
talking potentially in the hundreds, possibly upwards of
1000 maybe. If I got it right, if I remember
(36:07):
correctly, the figure for the overall deaths with of of
children in Gaza, which even theBBC accepts because it's
mentioned in the text with the documentaries 50,000 right?
So if we are now looking at thisnumber of children killed by
deliberate sniping, out of those50,000 children, how many are we
(36:28):
looking at? Can you get a bigger war crime
than this? I mean, in terms of the, you
know, Hall of Fame of, of war crimes or Hall of infamous war
crimes, I don't think you can get much higher than this.
So, and the other thing is that the, the way they're
investigating this was done remotely by Zoom.
(36:48):
They did a very good job at pinpointing the location in this
case. But imagine if there were
Western journalists on the ground, right?
And so in it. But they're not, and This is
why. And the BBC, well, no, let's
give credit to this lady in the text, if she had a handwriting.
The text, of course, that's stated because Israel does not
(37:11):
allow foreign journalists into the Gaza area.
Yeah, Jeremy Bowen. Who Jeremy?
And we all know Jeremy Bowen is.I've got my criticisms of a lot
of Jeremy Bowen's reporting. He's complaining that his
reporting is totally controlled by the Israelis.
This is a top end BBC journalist, BBC supposed to have
access to everything, right? This is a preeminent global
(37:34):
media institution. But he's left to stay on the
periphery of northern Gaza because he says, quote, they
won't allow us in, says Jeremy Bowen.
So he's got to be in a building looking over a big wall, through
the barbed wire fence, looking at explosions and things with
his team and binoculars and telephoto lenses and that's it.
And they wouldn't accept this from any other country if this
(37:57):
was Russia. Yeah, say.
Or any or. Any other country, it's
immediately pinned on them that this is outrageous, that
independent Free Press and mediaare prevented from seeing what
is actually happening in the warzone, and yet the BBC is just
rolled over to this sort of behaviour.
(38:19):
And and we're bringing we're bringing this conversation back
to press freedom now because this is really what it's all
about. Great piece of investigative
journalism by Stephanie Hagardi and her team at BBC World
Service. There's no doubt about Chicha.
Win an award for it, I would say, but but the reason did you
(38:39):
know if there were hundreds of Western journalists I'm talking
this is the point Jonathan Cook made award winning British
journalist who lived in the WestBank is now back in the UK and
we covered this on the UK columnnews recently.
Jonathan Cook made this point isthat with me?
Remember the Al Jazeera journalist have been killed in
the last week. OK, all that's a whole team
(39:01):
wiped out. There's almost no Al Jazeera
journalist left in Gaza. Imagine if that was ABBC team
and it was Jeremy Bowen, Lisa Doucette, and all of these other
frontline household names, household names in Britain, and
they were just done by the Israelis in one shot like that
outside of a hospital, right? What would the public reaction
(39:25):
be in Britain? I mean, it would be a firestorm.
Yeah, a complete fronted people be.
Absolutely horrified. And of course, the BBC would be
running the story on the hour, every hour, every day for the
next 2-3 weeks. But how did the BBC react to the
(39:46):
Aljazeera reporters being killed?
They their journalists said well, this is a question of
proportionality. Is it right to kill 5 Aljazeera
staff when you're only really targeting 1?
That was particularly well. OK.
This is this is where we're at. So that was vicious.
I see major internal problems with an organisation like the
(40:07):
BBC to have views like this coming out of, you know, major
reporting on a major world historical event and that they
are somehow ambiguous or confused about what is the moral
and ethical way and the right way to be looking at the story.
And, and, and so that that's like we say, we, we, we give
(40:29):
credit where there's good work. Well, absolutely, but.
Where, where there's, where there's something that is
absolutely wrong and, and you know, borderline evil, then we
criticise and it doesn't matter if it's within the same
organisation. So again, I I'm not against all
the individuals working in all of these institutions, but I I
(40:51):
have a problem with the institution itself.
Yeah, and I think that's absolutely true, Patrick,
because it is clear that the BBCdoes run a system of bias and
censorship on many issues. But it's become very well, it's
become ever more clear that wherever Israel is concerned,
the BBC simply won't grip the metal and actually report what's
(41:15):
really going on in an independent, moral way, which it
should. And then I find it particularly
disturbing that where you get journalists, and there have been
quite a few of them who've expressed concerns about
censorship inside the BBC, people are either getting shut
(41:35):
down in a very deliberate way orthe BBC is doing what they've
done to this woman, which is to take our excellent work and
slide it across so that it's hidden, you know, in in the long
grass of the wider BBC reporting.
The fact that that key article is not on the Gaza section of
(41:57):
the BBC, that cannot be an accident.
We're not pinned to the front ofour website.
It is an excellent piece of journalism.
I mean, this is the type of thing that people would rally
around, an organisation that would be really promoting it.
There's an organisation, I don'tknow if you've heard of this
organisation, Brian Centre for Media Monitoring.
They did a little. Surgeons A vague bell that.
(42:19):
They want. Well they did a little survey of
BBC reporting on Gaza and some of the results are very
interesting. They looked at 35,000 pieces of
media produced by this organisation since the last in
2023 and 2024. So over A2 year period nearly.
So looking at their analysis, 33times more coverage of the
(42:41):
Israeli perspective than the Palestinian perspective, 33X
more, 18 times more using the word massacre when referencing
Israeli deaths as opposed to Palestinian deaths where they're
killed or died. And using the word butcher
exclusively to describe Israeli victims were butchered by Hamas.
(43:07):
Then Palestinians who have been killed over the duration of this
conflict, and then four times more using the term atrocities
and slaughter and and murder, have used murder once for
Palestinians than they do for Israel.
So they're normally atrocities and slaughter.
They attribute that to Israeli victims.
(43:29):
They used murder once, I think, for the Palestinian victim.
And so I mean, list goes on and on.
And I can't, I can't help but wonder, Brian, what the
influence of organisations like Bicom, for instance, a known
Israeli lobbying organisation that specifically targets media
and you've been following. And the Conservative Party, of
(43:50):
course, if I remember correctly.And the Conservatives, but
you've been following these organisations for a long time.
Yeah. So, you know, now they've all
been activated in a, in a much bigger way.
So it's, it the numbers don't lie on the bias.
It's, it's, there's not even a defence.
For it. And if you are biassed enough to
not only bias your reporting when people are being killed in
(44:14):
their hundreds of thousands, that's one thing.
But if you if you're going to bias your reporting to actually
covering up the deliberate killing of children by sniper
fire, then the BBC is no longer credible in my opinion.
Yeah. There should be, I mean just
(44:35):
just on this story alone, the, the whole Gaza story, the last
1820 will be on two years prettysoon, two months to be 24
months. There should be mass
resignations at the BBC for this.
And I know there are good journalists and, and people of
conscience that work there who either have resigned probably or
left quietly or would like to orjust can't understand the fact
(45:00):
that they're, you know, part of this propaganda campaign, which
is really what it is. Because if it's because of the
way it's the bias is constructed, the propaganda
that's done on behalf of Israel,this prevents a political impact
from occurring as a result of what's happening on the ground.
And it also means that there's no sanctions and no embargo of
(45:21):
Israel, because that's the finalthat's.
The no push to stop violence itself.
Or stops supplying arms to Israel.
So we've been talking about thisfrom day one of this conflict.
And only recently I think we've had some belated statements from
the Prime Minister, David Lammy.All this, this outrage must not
(45:43):
stand anymore. They've gone too far.
We need to wind this back. And you know, if they don't, if
they don't stop bombing the Palestinians, we might just
recognise A Palestinian state. So watch it.
Israel going to discipline you. You know, I mean, it's kind of
ridiculous at this point, but but the BBC is in such a
(46:04):
position, aren't they? They have the resources, they
have the journalists, they have the people, they have the
access. They could absolutely if they
wanted to. If they were able to, they could
turn public opinion on a dime. On this issue and they could
stop the violence. This is the key thing.
And you could I'm saying stop the violence as a result, sorry,
(46:25):
and not achieve peace because peace requires a whole set of
diplomacy. But the minimum the BBC could do
if they really told the story was to stop the violence, in my
opinion. Patrick going to say thank you
very much for joining me. We we had this discussion.
I thought it was worth us sharing it with the audience.
(46:47):
And I'd like to end by saying that a very long ago, an hour
ago, I actually sent Steph, Stephanie Haggerty an email to
say how taken I was with a documentary, what an excellent,
very poignant documentary, but also to ask what was the what
(47:08):
was the result? What agencies have taken up that
research and what is it achievednow?
I've I sent her a very polite, measured email.
I've praised her for the work she's done.
I've asked whether she will speak to me personally in order
to tell tell us a bit more aboutwhat she did and what the result
(47:29):
has been. Will I get a reply?
I hope so, but I'm not entirely sure I will because the BBC
always seems to be very shy of talking to new media
journalists. You've experienced that,
Patrick, I know. But at least we did reach out to
her. And I think we should end by
saying to the audience that it'svery important to give praise
(47:53):
and credit to people where they've done the right thing.
It's not right to label everybody as bad because they're
ABBC journalists, because this is another example where we've
seen a journalist inside the BBCbrave enough to speak up and and
also produce some very challenging work.
So we're going to say it. Well done, Stephanie.
(48:17):
Thanks for joining me, Patrick. My pleasure, Brian.
Thank you.
Good afternoon. I'm here in Studio 2 at the UK
column and I'm delighted today to be joined by Patrick
Henningson. Welcome, Patrick.
Great to be with you, Brian. Thank you.
Well, we were having a discussion a couple of days ago
about a very interesting BBCI think we've called it a mini
(00:28):
documentary by a lady called Stephanie Hegarty.
And it was on the deeply troubling subject of children
who had been shot in Gaza. And really the meat of the story
was that many of these children very young, some of them 2-3
years old, but up to the age of 12.
(00:48):
And they had clearly been shot by snipers in that they suffered
injuries to their heads and or chests.
And of course for a small child,for a small child, this is a
small target. And as we will hear, the numbers
of these children indicate that something very, very untoward
(01:10):
was was actually happening. Now what I found interesting
with this video documentary was that I simply found the video
introductory image at the bottomof an article on the BBC
website. There wasn't any direct text to
do with this production by Stephanie Haggerty.
(01:34):
I found that very strange. Nevertheless, I watched the
documentary. I found it to be very compelling
and it was only later that I discovered that there was text
that went with the documentary. But it wasn't placed under Gaza,
which would be the natural placefor it to appear under the BB CS
headline News on the War in Gaza.
(01:56):
It was actually under World News.
And then you had to look for thesubsection of the Middle East.
So I'm going to say, Patrick, that my brain said, it's almost
as if this has been pushed away to one side on the BBC website.
I don't know how you'd react to that.
Well, I think it's interesting you look at the coverage of the
(02:17):
BBC in particular and this, I believe this report was produced
under the banner of BBC World Service.
And I also noticed something about the reporting on BBC World
Service is slightly different than what we would call general
BBC. Same with CNNCNN World tends to
veer a little bit towards the truth in, in some of its
(02:39):
narratives, whereas CNN HQ in America is heavily
propagandised. Things are curated very, very
carefully. And I think I, I see some
similarities with the BBC, but the, what you say is true is
that this stuff gets compartmentalised.
It's in the BBC universe. But it I mean, I think this is
(03:00):
an extraordinary piece of investigative journalism and it
really should occupy, it should be, you know, the number one
national story. Major, major headline.
And yet this lady is with her team, has done this.
I think what extraordinary pieceof investigation it stands.
We're going to watch it and share that with our viewers and
(03:22):
listeners in just a moment. But yes, should really be a
major headline with a lot of questions to be asked,
principally by the Israeli Defence Forces, but also the
Israeli government itself as to how so many children came to be
shot. And many of them in areas where
(03:42):
there was no actual fighting taking place.
And some of them were actually travelling on some of these safe
corridors that have been identified by the Israelis in
order to allow people in Gaza tomove from one section to a safer
sectional or possibly to a location where there was food or
(04:02):
aid going to be provided. Yeah.
So let's have a look at the clip.
It's about 14 minutes long. I will say to the audience, it
is very harrowing. It's it's a very tragic subject.
I think it's been handled very carefully.
But I think the average person will find this a trouble,
(04:23):
troubling video clip. Nevertheless, if we were to
understand what's going on in Gaza, particularly around the
death of young children, we needto watch it.
A man and a small child are lying on a street in Gaza City.
In his final moments, the man reaches out to touch the child.
(04:50):
This video was broadcast on Qatari network Al Arabi TV in
late December 2023. The man and child had been shot
by Israeli snipers, the report claimed, but there were no
details of what exactly happenedor who they were.
For months we tried to find out more about them, trolling social
media and reaching out to contacts on the ground.
(05:12):
A comment under a social media post named as St and a business
in the video, which helped us togeolocate it, and we could
verify independently that it wasHamid St in Gaza City.
We found a name for the man in the video, Mohammed Al
Majdalawi, and traced his death certificate as well as that of
his daughter, 2 year old Leanne.Leanne's case is just one of
(05:48):
over 160 reports we've compiled of children who were shot in
this war in Gaza. The incidents we looked at ran
from the beginning of the war all the way up to July this
year. Israel bans foreign media from
entering Gaza independently to report, and destruction and
displacement also make gatheringdetails difficult.
(06:09):
We struggled to find Leanne's family and it wasn't until a
ceasefire earlier this year, when people could move more
freely, that we managed to reachthem.
Hello. Hello.
This is Leanne's sister Shahid. She was 12 years old and with
her mom Soraya, her teenage brother Abood, their father
(06:29):
Muhammad and Layan. That day, Shahid, Abood and
Soraya told us what they saw when Muhammad and Layan were
killed. The family say they were
sheltering in Gaza City when thearea was bombed by the IDF and
they were ordered to evacuate. On the 9th of November 2023, at
around midday, they told us theyleft this school and travelled
(06:52):
down this street, turning left onto a Mead St.
There was no fighting at the time, they said.
As they passed this junction, Shahed says she saw a tank up
the street to her left. Shahid says she and her brother
(07:25):
ran back to help and realised their father had been shot.
She tried to grab Leon, who wouldn't let go of her father
before they were shot at again. They fled and never saw Muhammad
(07:49):
or Leon again. This image was taken before the
war, but we've obtained and analysed a satellite image taken
2 hours before the shooting. We don't have permission to
publish it, so we've recreated it.
In this animation on the satellite we can see an IDF
presence 280 metres north of thefamily and we can see a tank
(08:10):
along the same street where Shahid says she saw 1-2 hours
later. Military analyst Stuart Ray
examined the image and pointed out these tanks, armoured
vehicles and military diggers, these defensive sandbanks and
the fact this location has the tallest buildings in the
immediate area, which suggests this was an IDF fortified
(08:30):
position. He said that as well as tanks, a
position like this would have infantry.
There are three clips in the video we've seen of Muhammad and
Leon. The first indicates where they
likely fell. In the second, drag marks show
that the bodies have been moved to behind this building.
(08:50):
In the last clip, they've been placed beside each other once
again. We showed these videos to three
forensic pathologists with experience in war casualties.
Each said it's evident that Muhammad and Layan were killed
by gunfire. Professor Derek Pounder is the
former head of pathology at the University of Dundee.
Overall, it's most likely that asingle gunshot has struck the
(09:14):
infant, passed through the infant into the man, causing him
to collapse and killing both of them.
What is it that you can see in this video, which isn't very
clear, that tells you that? There's no evidence of any blast
injury with flailing of the armsand legs.
There's not obvious large injuries to the bodies.
(09:35):
The video is a relatively poor quality, but we can see what a
likely blood stains to the man'sleft shoulder and chest area.
High velocity gunshot wounds from military rifles leave a
small entrance hole and cause devastating internal injuries.
We presented our findings to theIDF and they said IDF soldiers
(09:56):
operate against terrorist organisations in complex urban
environments and unintended or erroneous harm may occur in the
course of combat. They added that whenever there
is reasonable suspicion that IDFforces acted contrary to IDF
values and orders, the incident will be reviewed and handled
with the necessary seriousness. They said the details of this
(10:18):
case have been recorded and willbe examined by the competent
authorities. In some of the cases we looked
at like Leon's children were allegedly shot while fleeing
battle zones, but many others were shot while playing outside
their tents in humanitarian zones and some in areas the IDF
themselves had marked as evacuation corridors.
(10:45):
In a case we first came across on social media, 6 year old Mira
Tambura was shot in the back of the chest, according to her
father, close to an Israeli checkpoint on the Salaheddin Rd,
an IDF marked evacuation route on the 18th of November 2023.
Her father rushed her to Alauda Hospital where the hospital
director told us they pronouncedher dead earlier that day.
(11:09):
The Tambora say they were screened at this IDF checkpoint
after fleeing northern Gaza. They were just over a kilometre
down the road when Mira was shot.
(11:36):
In this satellite image from theday before, we can see the IDF
position at the checkpoint. This video posted a few days
earlier shows the containers andbuildings we can see by
satellite. Our BBC colleague Jihad al
Mashrawi was in Gaza until February 2024 and he passed
(11:57):
through the checkpoint with his family two days before Mira.
And on this. Satellite.
(12:20):
Image We can see several of those buildings on the east of
the road, as well as these Sam barriers in the direction that
side pointed to where he believes the shock came from.
At the time Mira was shot, we found no reports of clashes with
Hamas in the vicinity of the checkpoint, which reduces the
likelihood that she was caught up in crossfire.
(12:52):
When we put the allegations madein this case to the IDF, they
said an allegation of harm in and of itself does not
necessarily indicate a violationof the law.
That said, whenever there is reasonable suspicion that IDF
forces acted concrete IDF valuesand orders, the incident will be
reviewed and handled with the necessary seriousness, they
(13:13):
added. The details of this case have
been recorded and will be examined by the competent
authorities. Since the beginning of the war,
doctors have been raising concerns about children being
shot in Gaza. We spoke to 30 doctors and
nurses and reviewed hundreds of photos and videos, as well as
scans, medical notes and journalentries that they shared.
(13:35):
Some of these medics said they saw many more children with
gunshot injuries. However, as we compiled cases,
we only included those they had documented.
Professor Nizam Mahmoud is a retired NHS consultant and
transplant surgeon. He was in Gaza for a month in
August 2024. We saw a significant number of
(13:57):
shootings either with bullets tothe head or chest, including to
children. So most of the gunshot wounds to
the head were dealt with by the neurosurgeons.
I saw some of the X rays. So a bullet literally lodged in
the brain of a three year old child.
How many cases do you think you saw of children who were shot?
(14:18):
I lost count during the time I was there.
I would say probably 20 plus. We also spoke to human rights
researchers working on the ground and collated and verified
media reports. Of the 168 cases we compiled, we
found 95 instances of a child shot in the head or the chest.
(14:39):
More than 2/3 of these children were under 12 years old.
In 59 cases, we were able to obtain an account from witnesses
of what happened, either directly or via doctors and
human rights researchers. In 57 of those, it was alleged
that the IDF shot the child, andin two that the children were
allegedly shot by Palestinians, one by celebratory gunfire, the
(15:02):
other in a gang conflict. For the remaining 36 cases, we
have no account of what happened.
Without access to Gaza to report, gathering details on
each incident is extremely difficult.
Children have come into our field hospital with gunshot
wounds. Across 20 months of fighting,
children have been killed and injured in their homes, whether
(15:23):
they're staying in tents or walking in the streets.
And the world simply cannot accept this type of warfare,
this kind of impact on children.If the world accepts it,
whatever comes next will be evenworse.
While we have no proof of intent, Mira and Leon's cases
raise serious questions about how the IDF operates in Gaza.
(15:46):
This week, Israeli human rights group B'tselem reported on the
absence of any rules of engagement in Gaza for Israeli
forces. This video was broadcast in
April on Israeli TV. It's an IDF commander speaking
to his troops, telling them to shoot at everyone they see.
(16:11):
Kay was a reservist in Gaza in early 2024.
I asked if he was surprised to hear that so many children had
been shot in the head, allegedlyby Israeli troops.
I'm not super surprised. I'm not sure that there exists
soldiers who would do that. Do you think there's a lack of
accountability? I would definitely say there's a
(16:32):
lack of accountability. Kay didn't witness very young
children being shot, but he described several incidents in
which his unit killed unarmed people, including two boys he
described as young teenagers. There's a humanitarian Rd where
Gazans can go from north to South and the general rule was
(16:52):
on this road. It's a safe zone and no shooting
anyone you see off the humanitarian Rd Shoot, shoot to
kill. That's what we were told our
commander qualify that. Of course, if it's a woman or a
child, don't shoot. Try to detain them.
Don't be stupid. As time went on, the stakes kept
getting higher and higher. It was just very much nothing
(17:15):
matters, that's it. And then ultimately, when we
lost some people in a firefight,it was just it.
Destroy everything. Kill everyone you see.
We put the soldiers allegations to the IDF and they said the IDF
remains committed to minimising harm to civilians as much as
possible. 3 experts in international law looked at our
(17:37):
findings. They told us they raised serious
questions over whether these shootings were a result of
recklessness, negligence or wilful attack.
Under international law, professional soldiers have the
obligation to check before they take that shot that what they're
shooting at is a legal enemy combatant and not a civilian.
(17:59):
So when so many children are getting shot, and especially in
the head, that tells us that something is seriously wrong.
Of the 168 cases we looked at, we know that at least 90
(18:20):
children died, but because of the damage to Gaza's medical
system, it's hard for us to determine how many ultimately
succumbed to their injuries. According to the Mass Run Health
Ministry, at least 50,000 children have been killed or
injured in Gaza since the beginning of this war.
The families we spoke to say they have no hope for justice
(18:40):
for their children. Some weren't even able to bury
their bodies. Layan and Muhammad's remains lay
on Hamid's street for days as Shahid, Abboud and Soraya fled
from danger in the chaos of thisbrutal war.
And until we contacted them overa year later, they had no idea
(19:02):
that this video existed. Well, Patrick, that does take
some watching, doesn't it? Because it's got a very soft
feel to the style of the documentary.
It hasn't got any of the sort ofrazzmatazz that the BBC often
likes to bring into its documentary style.
(19:24):
So it's very a very soft measured, calculated, it leads
you through the story, but the facts speak from themselves.
So they investigated 160 cases overall where children have been
shot. In 95, those 160 cases, the
(19:44):
children have actually been shotin the head and all the chest.
So that's very direct targeting of, as I've said, often small
children. And in 57 of the cases, they
actually had witnesses who were prepared to say yes, they were
shot by the Israeli Defence Forces.
(20:05):
As opposed to some of the cases where people were able to admit
that there was fighting going on.
So it's possible mistakes were made.
And I think in at least one caseit might have been possibly two
children were shot as a result of celebratory gunfire.
So people have been firing off randomly in celebration of some
(20:28):
success on the battlefield and that they'd been a casualty as a
result. But this is a very large number
of children and I think, I thinkthis is where the the story for
me got extremely interesting. Yeah, there's no denying it.
There should be no doubt at all that what the this this
investigative piece shows. There's a systemic trend here
(20:51):
that's undeniable, and that is the systematic targeting of
children with head shots, you know, to children playing
outside their tents in areas that they were driven to by the
IDF. So there's no doubt that if they
don't explicitly come out and make these conclusions, but it's
(21:11):
evident in the way that evidenceis presented.
So I would I would be led to believe here that the people
producing this report, includingStephanie Haggardi and her team,
are coming to the same conclusions.
We are, of course, we're just more we, we can be more
forthright in how we're and moreoutspoken about how we're sort
of, you know, saying what, what it is.
(21:32):
But you know, you remember the Syria coverage, remember back in
all the outrage from some of these images with the White
Helmets and little Omron, the dusty boy in the back of the
ambulance. And that was front and centre on
every tabloid. I remember going out to the news
stands in in the UK and look, Daily Mail, Guardian, Times, all
running the same image of the dusty boy.
(21:55):
And this just galvanised public opinion that we must get rid of
Bashar al Assad because he's just so inherently evil and
Assad must go, let's get behind the war effort.
This is the type of report whereyou should have that type of
public reaction. This should be a game changer.
So what I'm looking at, Brian Ear's it, it hasn't been
(22:16):
elevated to that degree. We can, of course, you know,
discuss why. I think we both know why.
But so there's unlikely there's going to be any policy change as
a result of this excellent pieceof journalism.
And that's the problem because especially coming from the bbci
mean, when does the BBC ever do anything that would pushes the
(22:39):
government foreign policy back in the other direction and
causes a, a a change of heart inWestminster?
Very rare. But this, this report could do
that. I certainly can't see anything
wrong with it. I mean, look, it's pretty,
pretty clear what the conclusions are.
Yeah, it's it's very measured inthe way that it it goes through,
(23:01):
through the information. And they stress that they did
their utmost to actually get corroboration of the incidents.
And this is this is the point about witnesses coming forward.
Now you might say, well, OK, in a emotional battlefield
environment, some people might come forward and accuse the IDF
(23:22):
of doing things. But but the numbers here, 95
cases out of that 160, and we'vealready got 160 cases of
children being shot. And this can't possibly be
accidental. And the younger the child, the
smaller the target. And for a small child to be hit
(23:44):
in the head, somebody's got to be taking a very, very carefully
aimed shot. And that's going to be a, a
sniper's rifle. I, I was also interested in the
documentary that the BBC was able to use its investigatory
powers to get into Gaza to identify who the family was.
(24:05):
And the little girl in the firstinstant was called Leanne.
She was two years old and her father was Mohamed al Majid
Alwawi. And he ends up shot.
Whether he was shot and the little girl who he was clutching
to his chest was hit as a resultof that shot or the shot went
(24:27):
through the little girl, it's not clear.
But they end up on the street there and that tragic video
footage where he's obviously severely wounded and he reaches
out with his right hand to try and stroke that little girl.
Very poignant moment. But the BBC takes that footage
(24:48):
and he's able to pin down the location and he's able to then
show that Israeli units were along one of the side streets
that the family crossed and there was a tank and there were
troops. And then they actually used a
military analyst to say, well, this made sense because they
(25:08):
were high rise buildings and therefore we could expect
Israeli units to be there. And we then came to that very
interesting little bit where they were overlaying satellite
images and suddenly she says we weren't given permission to use
this footage. What would you make of that?
That was very odd because so this would have been, if my
(25:31):
understanding of this incident is correct, this would have been
late December 2023. So, you know, like, say, in the
early phases of the, what's it called a genocide in Gaza?
And So what would be so sensitive to 18 months later
that it you couldn't get clearance to show the footage
(25:53):
which they had to then go recreate using digital imagery
is just because there's 22 possibilities here. 1 is that
the Israelis were doing something they shouldn't have
been doing. And then what you would remarked
in our discussions before is that was the presence of any
Western assets and possibly military assets there.
Third option on that bit of censorship is that that got
(26:17):
spiked at the desk at the BBC's Middle East desk by some kind of
operative plant like Raffy Berg,who is the head of the Middle
East desk as a former CIA propagandist and who has been
the subject of complaints by hiscohort at the BBC for ultra bias
(26:38):
editorial decisions in favour ofIsrael.
So it was one of those possibly in my mind anyway, one of those
3 possibilities, but it doesn't make any sense 18 months after.
So I, I'm, I'm, I'm more interested like yourself, Brian,
in that because behind that decision to not allow that
(27:01):
footage to be seen in its raw form, there's some answers there
behind that, yeah. Is it because the work that
Steph, Stephanie and her team did started to show the powers
that be, whether that's the IDF or the Israeli government or the
higher level of the BBC, that ifthey continued to investigate in
(27:23):
this very careful, detailed way,using all of the available
information, which would includesatellite overlay surveillance
footage from some of the drones,that it would actually be
possible to deconstruct a lot ofwhat had taken place in the
violence? So it's it's the stack of cards
(27:46):
or the the domino. They don't want this one to fall
because if this case falls, thenall the rest of the incidents
come up to the surface. And maybe something which which
supports that line of thinking is the fact that later in that
little video, they discussed what the policy was, what the
(28:07):
rules of engagement for the Israeli troops were.
And the statement is actually they didn't seem to have any.
And then of course they used theclip of the Israeli, the IDF
commander simply saying to the to the Israeli soldiers you
shoot. So if that is true, that IDF
(28:30):
troops are not even using rules,proper rules of engagement,
which certainly NATO forces evenin Afghanistan or Iraq would
have been using a basic rule of engagement as to who they shoot
at and who they don't. Well, it's, it kind of, it kind
of makes sense, Brian, because this is a country that is an
(28:53):
occupying power, you see, and they don't have, Israel's the
only country in the world that doesn't have declared borders or
constitution. And why is that?
Well, because if they had a constitution, they'd have to
basically uphold it to. And if they had borders, they
wouldn't be able to expand and they wouldn't be able to get
away with an illegal occupation running an apartheid system,
(29:15):
obviously. So they'd probably fall short on
the rules of engagement. They did, however, have that
nice excuse, he said. In the course of our operations,
sometimes unfortunate things happen.
And let let us assure you this is being looked at by the by
competent authorities if anything goes against IDF
values. Yes, that was, we're laughing.
(29:38):
It's a very dark subject. Bit of black humour here.
Yeah, I mean, that was, that wasa pretty outrageous statement.
Our values, well, what are your values?
Are those values written down? I suspect not.
Yeah. So they basically gave the
collateral damage caveat, you know, completely devoid of the
context of the occupation. And that's an important point.
(30:01):
That's a point that's often glossed over by Western media.
And that's part of the framing of this whole issue.
And this conflict and this genocide is how it's framed.
It's framed as a war. Like these are two countries
fighting each other. It's not, it's an occupation.
And they're also, and this is this gets right down to the nub
(30:24):
of the issue, Brian here. When we're talking about the the
the US and the British and the European policy with regards to
the proscription of terrorist groups like Hamas, for instance,
or any of these Palestinian resistance groups, is that that
that that's done outside of the international law.
(30:45):
And the international law and the UN Charter is very clear
that countries under occupation have a right to defend
themselves and that armed liberation struggles fall under
a basic human right globally. And that would be the case for
us if we were under occupation, you know, military occupation or
in America or in Canada or Mexico or anywhere else.
(31:09):
So, but in this case, we don't seem to recognise that.
But it's so important in how thestory's framed.
Because of the story's framed a certain way, it gets distorted
very quickly. And then what journalists are
reporting on doesn't correspond to the reality on the ground for
the people who are experiencing it.
This is the number one disconnect that we get with our
(31:32):
mainstream media. Yeah.
And so it it, it focuses in thatthat concept that you just let's
set out that focuses us back in on actually how effective this
little 14 minute documentary was.
Because she didn't get distracted by any wider issues.
She just stayed on the case of the children being shot and they
(31:56):
took their evidence from the which is the word the.
Oh, the path Forensic. Pathologist.
Sorry, friend. Yeah.
And of course, they, they, they took information from the
forensic pathologist at university level who said, well,
there's no signs of blast injury, so destroyed limbs or
(32:20):
major wounds on the body. So even though he called, he
commented on the fact that the quality of the film footage in
in some of the shots was relatively poor in his opinion.
Yeah, there was no doubt these these children have been shot.
And then, of course, there were many actual factual photographs
(32:43):
and scans from inside hospital environments where there was no
doubt that these were gunshot injuries.
So her documentary stayed absolutely focused on the facts.
And then by the end, I'm starting to wonder, well, OK,
where has this information gone?And that little documentary clip
(33:05):
didn't really cover that. But when you read the script
that goes with it, which as I say, we found on the BBC World
News Middle East subsection page, then there was a little
bit of comments that this information had gone on to hire
agencies. UNI think was one of those.
(33:29):
But I'm very curious, where's the result?
Where where's been commenting the BBC or the newspapers about
the fact that we've got this clear track record of very young
children sniped, killed by snipers deliberately, Where's
the push back? Doesn't appear to be any.
I mean, how many? Let's just take this out of the
(33:51):
Gaza context. If this was happening in
Ukraine, how many of these headshots or fatalities of
children being shot would would raise one's eyebrows to the
point where it's a a thing, it'sa controversy, it's worthy of
headlines. I I thought about this, Patrick,
(34:12):
and my brain says 10 because youcould probably say around all of
the conflict areas, there's always going to be the chance
civilians get caught up in a firefight.
And then there's the accidental shot, which kills a very small
job, but you get above 10 and I'm thinking there's something
happening here, but the time you're up to 57, there's a bit
(34:34):
of a pattern. Get up to 100.
Yeah, they've got a major problem.
This is just the known cases that they had access to the
data. If you consider the fact that
and, and their data they're gathering here with the BBC is
from late December 2023 till July of this year, so just this
past month. So that means that there's a lot
(34:58):
of potential information and data that's been destroyed
because of a lot of the healthcare institutions in the
Gaza Ministry of Health has beenwiped out.
That same Ministry of Health that the West like to call Hamas
run Gaza Ministry of Health, thethe records, keeping everything.
This is one of the things that'scome out in the UN reports is
they don't have the infrastructure anymore to keep
(35:20):
track of of fatalities. So a lot of the stuff that could
be at least investigated at the,you know, ICU level, the first
state, let the first responder level a certain amount of
documentation with regards to the cases you're dealing with,
whether it's a shooting or whatever the a lot of the stuffs
are missing. So what do you think the true
number is just considering the scale of the desert devastation
(35:44):
and the amount of reporting? And and this too, clearly we
have a trend here out of these 160 cases with 9095 head shots
of children or chest shots, you know, really precise, we're
talking potentially in the hundreds, possibly upwards of
1000 maybe. If I got it right, if I remember
(36:07):
correctly, the figure for the overall deaths with of of
children in Gaza, which even theBBC accepts because it's
mentioned in the text with the documentaries 50,000 right?
So if we are now looking at thisnumber of children killed by
deliberate sniping, out of those50,000 children, how many are we
(36:28):
looking at? Can you get a bigger war crime
than this? I mean, in terms of the, you
know, Hall of Fame of, of war crimes or Hall of infamous war
crimes, I don't think you can get much higher than this.
So, and the other thing is that the, the way they're
investigating this was done remotely by Zoom.
(36:48):
They did a very good job at pinpointing the location in this
case. But imagine if there were
Western journalists on the ground, right?
And so in it. But they're not, and This is
why. And the BBC, well, no, let's
give credit to this lady in the text, if she had a handwriting.
The text, of course, that's stated because Israel does not
(37:11):
allow foreign journalists into the Gaza area.
Yeah, Jeremy Bowen. Who Jeremy?
And we all know Jeremy Bowen is.I've got my criticisms of a lot
of Jeremy Bowen's reporting. He's complaining that his
reporting is totally controlled by the Israelis.
This is a top end BBC journalist, BBC supposed to have
access to everything, right? This is a preeminent global
(37:34):
media institution. But he's left to stay on the
periphery of northern Gaza because he says, quote, they
won't allow us in, says Jeremy Bowen.
So he's got to be in a building looking over a big wall, through
the barbed wire fence, looking at explosions and things with
his team and binoculars and telephoto lenses and that's it.
And they wouldn't accept this from any other country if this
(37:57):
was Russia. Yeah, say.
Or any or. Any other country, it's
immediately pinned on them that this is outrageous, that
independent Free Press and mediaare prevented from seeing what
is actually happening in the warzone, and yet the BBC is just
rolled over to this sort of behaviour.
(38:19):
And and we're bringing we're bringing this conversation back
to press freedom now because this is really what it's all
about. Great piece of investigative
journalism by Stephanie Hagardi and her team at BBC World
Service. There's no doubt about Chicha.
Win an award for it, I would say, but but the reason did you
(38:39):
know if there were hundreds of Western journalists I'm talking
this is the point Jonathan Cook made award winning British
journalist who lived in the WestBank is now back in the UK and
we covered this on the UK columnnews recently.
Jonathan Cook made this point isthat with me?
Remember the Al Jazeera journalist have been killed in
the last week. OK, all that's a whole team
(39:01):
wiped out. There's almost no Al Jazeera
journalist left in Gaza. Imagine if that was ABBC team
and it was Jeremy Bowen, Lisa Doucette, and all of these other
frontline household names, household names in Britain, and
they were just done by the Israelis in one shot like that
outside of a hospital, right? What would the public reaction
(39:25):
be in Britain? I mean, it would be a firestorm.
Yeah, a complete fronted people be.
Absolutely horrified. And of course, the BBC would be
running the story on the hour, every hour, every day for the
next 2-3 weeks. But how did the BBC react to the
(39:46):
Aljazeera reporters being killed?
They their journalists said well, this is a question of
proportionality. Is it right to kill 5 Aljazeera
staff when you're only really targeting 1?
That was particularly well. OK.
This is this is where we're at. So that was vicious.
I see major internal problems with an organisation like the
(40:07):
BBC to have views like this coming out of, you know, major
reporting on a major world historical event and that they
are somehow ambiguous or confused about what is the moral
and ethical way and the right way to be looking at the story.
And, and, and so that that's like we say, we, we, we give
(40:29):
credit where there's good work. Well, absolutely, but.
Where, where there's, where there's something that is
absolutely wrong and, and you know, borderline evil, then we
criticise and it doesn't matter if it's within the same
organisation. So again, I I'm not against all
the individuals working in all of these institutions, but I I
(40:51):
have a problem with the institution itself.
Yeah, and I think that's absolutely true, Patrick,
because it is clear that the BBCdoes run a system of bias and
censorship on many issues. But it's become very well, it's
become ever more clear that wherever Israel is concerned,
the BBC simply won't grip the metal and actually report what's
(41:15):
really going on in an independent, moral way, which it
should. And then I find it particularly
disturbing that where you get journalists, and there have been
quite a few of them who've expressed concerns about
censorship inside the BBC, people are either getting shut
(41:35):
down in a very deliberate way orthe BBC is doing what they've
done to this woman, which is to take our excellent work and
slide it across so that it's hidden, you know, in in the long
grass of the wider BBC reporting.
The fact that that key article is not on the Gaza section of
(41:57):
the BBC, that cannot be an accident.
We're not pinned to the front ofour website.
It is an excellent piece of journalism.
I mean, this is the type of thing that people would rally
around, an organisation that would be really promoting it.
There's an organisation, I don'tknow if you've heard of this
organisation, Brian Centre for Media Monitoring.
They did a little. Surgeons A vague bell that.
(42:19):
They want. Well they did a little survey of
BBC reporting on Gaza and some of the results are very
interesting. They looked at 35,000 pieces of
media produced by this organisation since the last in
2023 and 2024. So over A2 year period nearly.
So looking at their analysis, 33times more coverage of the
(42:41):
Israeli perspective than the Palestinian perspective, 33X
more, 18 times more using the word massacre when referencing
Israeli deaths as opposed to Palestinian deaths where they're
killed or died. And using the word butcher
exclusively to describe Israeli victims were butchered by Hamas.
(43:07):
Then Palestinians who have been killed over the duration of this
conflict, and then four times more using the term atrocities
and slaughter and and murder, have used murder once for
Palestinians than they do for Israel.
So they're normally atrocities and slaughter.
They attribute that to Israeli victims.
(43:29):
They used murder once, I think, for the Palestinian victim.
And so I mean, list goes on and on.
And I can't, I can't help but wonder, Brian, what the
influence of organisations like Bicom, for instance, a known
Israeli lobbying organisation that specifically targets media
and you've been following. And the Conservative Party, of
(43:50):
course, if I remember correctly.And the Conservatives, but
you've been following these organisations for a long time.
Yeah. So, you know, now they've all
been activated in a, in a much bigger way.
So it's, it the numbers don't lie on the bias.
It's, it's, there's not even a defence.
For it. And if you are biassed enough to
not only bias your reporting when people are being killed in
(44:14):
their hundreds of thousands, that's one thing.
But if you if you're going to bias your reporting to actually
covering up the deliberate killing of children by sniper
fire, then the BBC is no longer credible in my opinion.
Yeah. There should be, I mean just
(44:35):
just on this story alone, the, the whole Gaza story, the last
1820 will be on two years prettysoon, two months to be 24
months. There should be mass
resignations at the BBC for this.
And I know there are good journalists and, and people of
conscience that work there who either have resigned probably or
left quietly or would like to orjust can't understand the fact
(45:00):
that they're, you know, part of this propaganda campaign, which
is really what it is. Because if it's because of the
way it's the bias is constructed, the propaganda
that's done on behalf of Israel,this prevents a political impact
from occurring as a result of what's happening on the ground.
And it also means that there's no sanctions and no embargo of
(45:21):
Israel, because that's the finalthat's.
The no push to stop violence itself.
Or stops supplying arms to Israel.
So we've been talking about thisfrom day one of this conflict.
And only recently I think we've had some belated statements from
the Prime Minister, David Lammy.All this, this outrage must not
(45:43):
stand anymore. They've gone too far.
We need to wind this back. And you know, if they don't, if
they don't stop bombing the Palestinians, we might just
recognise A Palestinian state. So watch it.
Israel going to discipline you. You know, I mean, it's kind of
ridiculous at this point, but but the BBC is in such a
(46:04):
position, aren't they? They have the resources, they
have the journalists, they have the people, they have the
access. They could absolutely if they
wanted to. If they were able to, they could
turn public opinion on a dime. On this issue and they could
stop the violence. This is the key thing.
And you could I'm saying stop the violence as a result, sorry,
(46:25):
and not achieve peace because peace requires a whole set of
diplomacy. But the minimum the BBC could do
if they really told the story was to stop the violence, in my
opinion. Patrick going to say thank you
very much for joining me. We we had this discussion.
I thought it was worth us sharing it with the audience.
(46:47):
And I'd like to end by saying that a very long ago, an hour
ago, I actually sent Steph, Stephanie Haggerty an email to
say how taken I was with a documentary, what an excellent,
very poignant documentary, but also to ask what was the what
(47:08):
was the result? What agencies have taken up that
research and what is it achievednow?
I've I sent her a very polite, measured email.
I've praised her for the work she's done.
I've asked whether she will speak to me personally in order
to tell tell us a bit more aboutwhat she did and what the result
(47:29):
has been. Will I get a reply?
I hope so, but I'm not entirely sure I will because the BBC
always seems to be very shy of talking to new media
journalists. You've experienced that,
Patrick, I know. But at least we did reach out to
her. And I think we should end by
saying to the audience that it'svery important to give praise
(47:53):
and credit to people where they've done the right thing.
It's not right to label everybody as bad because they're
ABBC journalists, because this is another example where we've
seen a journalist inside the BBCbrave enough to speak up and and
also produce some very challenging work.
So we're going to say it. Well done, Stephanie.
(48:17):
Thanks for joining me, Patrick. My pleasure, Brian.
Thank you.
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