BBC Issues Apology for Reporting Hamas’s ‘Summary Executions’ Claim

The BBC has apologised for not making “sufficient effort” in corroborating a claim by Hamas about the deaths of 137 Palestinian civilians. The story that prompted an apology by the broadcaster was based on a dispatch by the Agence France-Presse (AFP). The AFP report indicated that the IDF buried the Palestinian civilians in a pit in northern Gaza. AFP’s report mentioned that the agency was unable to independently verify the allegations. The story was then reported by the BBC in the end of last year more than once, via the broadcaster’s radio services. The apology for the Christmas Eve report, which had aired on BBC World Service and Radio 4, was then published on the BBC website....