BBC WS News conceals crossings closure context

BBC World Service listeners hear that a crossing into Gaza was reopened - but not about the terror attack which prompted the closure.

Listeners to the BBC World Service news on the morning of October 21st were informed by newsreader Rosemary Crick (from 04:10 here) that:

Crick: “Four days after closing the crossing for goods and people between Israel and the Gaza Strip, Israel’s defence minister Avigdor Lieberman has reopened it. A statement from his office said the decision was taken after a decrease in violence in Gaza and because of efforts to restrain Palestinian demonstrators made by Hamas – the militant group that controls the Strip.”

As readers probably know – but apparently BBC World Service news producers do not – there are two separate crossings for goods (Kerem Shalom) and people (Erez) and so Crick’s opening sentence is inaccurate and misleading.

In addition to her portrayal of violent rioters as “demonstrators” and a terrorist organisation as a “militant group”, Crick failed to inform BBC audiences around the world why the two crossings had been closed in the first place.

As the Times of Israel and others reported:

“The defense minister ordered the pedestrian Erez Crossing and Kerem Shalom goods crossing closed last Wednesday, after a rocket launched from the Gaza Strip exploded outside a home in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba and another landed in the sea off the coast of the greater Tel Aviv area.”

However, the BBC did not produce any reporting on those attacks and so as far as BBC World Service audiences are concerned, Israel’s Minister of Defence apparently just closes and opens crossings into the Gaza Strip at whim.

So much for “accurate and impartial news [..] of the highest editorial standards” at the BBC. 

Related Articles:

Rocket attack on Be’er Sheva home ignored by BBC

BBC WS audiences get distorted account of Kerem Shalom closure

 

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