After publishing a story claiming a Gazan woman died from malnutrition after being evacuated to Italy, the BBC admitted it was not aware that the woman had suffered from leukemia.
The original article published Saturday evening had stated in its headline: "Gazan woman flown to Italy dies of malnutrition."
The Israeli unit responsible for coordinating humanitarian issues in Gaza, COGAT, then published information that 20-year-old Marah Salad Mahmoud Zohry suffered from a rare and aggressive form of leukemia.
She was evacuated to Italy with the active coordination of Israel, COGAT noted.
"Her evacuation could have taken place earlier, as Israel had proposed several possible dates for the transfer. Israel facilitates the medical transfer of patients, with a focus on children, and encourages countries around the world to make such requests, while Hamas keeps cynically exploiting them for its twisted agenda."
The BBC acknowledged Monday it was "not initially aware that Zohry was being treated for leukemia."
"In line with usual editorial practice, we added this to the story... after Israeli authorities put the information into the public domain. We have amended the original headline and tweet and added an explanatory note."
The explanatory note, added to the story days after its original publication, reads: "This article's headline originally said that Marah Abu Zuhri died of malnutrition, with the introduction stating that she suffered a cardiac arrest and died on Friday. The headline has been amended to remove the reference to malnutrition being the cause of death in what the hospital described as a 'very complex clinical picture.'"
The BBC also changed the headline of the story to "Gazan woman flown to Italy dies in hospital" and replaced the post on 𝕏 featuring the original headline.
The BBC report quickly drew broad condemnation.
British journalist Melanie Phillips wrote on 𝕏, "Israel helps evacuate cancer sufferer from Gaza to Italy. She dies there of leukemia. BBC suggests Israel starved her to death. To the BBC, even cancer is Israel's fault."
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, retweeted Phillips' post, and commented: "Will the BBC retract the story and apologize? Of course. The same day a Baskin Robbins opens a franchise in hell."
The BBC has faced continued criticism for its reporting, which has long been biased against Israel, but even more so since the Israel-Hamas war began in October 2023.
After the broadcaster used a son of a senior Hamas official as a narrator in a documentary, Danny Cohen, who ran BBC TV from 2013 to 2015, told The Times newspaper: "The BBC must ask itself how and why it has allowed Hamas to become a trustworthy source of information for newsgathering and reporting."
"It is a terrorist group committed to genocidal destruction… The BBC has allowed itself to be manipulated by terrorists."
This AllIsraelNews.com story was reprinted with permission.