An Israeli hospital has banned news personnel from the British Broadcasting Corporation in protest of its coverage of the carnage left by Hamas terrorists who staged a surprise assault earlier this month that left at least 1,400 civilians and soldiers dead and scores in captivity.
The Galilee Medical Center in the northern town of Nahariya, whose trauma ward is treating Israeli soldiers wounded from fighting Hezbollah terrorists along the country’s border with Lebanon, was scheduled to allow a BBC camera crew to film footage of doctors and nurses treating troops on Saturday.
But hospital management decided to cancel the visit, according to the Israeli Hebrew-language news site Walla!
“I have notified the BBC crew that was planning to arrive [Saturday morning] to film news footage of the following: Galilee Medical Center is at this time suspending the entry of the BBC until further notice,” an official statement from a hospital spokesperson read.
The Post has sought comment from the BBC.
BBC told staffers recently that it would provide mental health support after a torrent of abuse was directed at company personnel online.
“I know from my experience working on upsetting, running news stories over the years that you can be doing fine, but sometimes that can change, and you need a bit more help or to talk things through,” Sam Taylor, the chief operating officer of BBC News, told staffers in an email.
Taylor lamented the fact that staffers were “experiencing abuse, either online or in person” and that it was exacerbating the “trauma caused by viewing specific images” from the Israel-Hamas war.
The contents of Taylor’s email was reported by the UK-based newspaper the Guardian.
The hospital in Nahariya, a town located just six miles from the Israel-Lebanon border, has thus far received more than 170 soldiers and civilians who have been wounded by Hezbollah gunfire or shelling since tensions resurfaced in light of the shocking Hamas assault on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
Hospital officials planned to allow the BBC to film footage of a new bomb-proof underground surgery room that was recently christened.
Hundreds of armed Hamas terrorists on para-gliders and vehicles poured across the Gaza-Israel border in the early hours of Oct. 7 and slaughtered at least 1,400 Israeli soldiers and civilians, including scores who were partying at a trance music rave.
They also took approximately 200 people hostage.
Israel retaliated with heavy aerial bombardment of the densely populated Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Palestinians, according to local officials in the Hamas-run territory.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shi’ite group with a massive military presence in southern Lebanon, has threatened to get involved in the fighting — opening up the prospect of Israel waging a two-front war that could potentially escalate into regional conflict with archenemy Iran.
The Biden administration has warned Iran and Hezbollah not to intercede on the Palestinians’ behalf.
Worst attack on Israel in 50 years: How we got here
2005: Israel unilaterally withdraws from the Gaza Strip over three decades after winning the territory from Egypt in the Six-Day War.
2006: Terrorist group Hamas wins a Palestinian legislative election.
2007: Hamas seizes control of Gaza in a civil war.
2008: Israel launches military offensive against Gaza after Palestinian terrorists fired rockets into the town of Sderot.
2023: Hamas launches the biggest attack on Israel in 50 years.
Over 1,400 Israelis are dead, more than 4,200 are wounded and at least 100 were taken hostage, with the death toll expected to rise after Hamas terrorists fired thousands of rockets and sent dozens of militants into Israeli towns.
Hamas terrorists were seen taking female hostages and parading them down the street in horrifying videos.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “We are at war” and vowed Hamas would pay “a price it has never known.”
Gaza health officials report at least 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,500 injured.
The BBC has been harshly criticized for its longstanding editorial policy that refuses to label Hamas a terrorist organization.
In the days following the Hamas assault, a Jewish contributor to the publicly funded news service said he would sever ties with the organization in protest of its journalists referring to Hamas as “gunmen” or “militants.”
The news service bowed to pressure and announced that it would no longer refer to Hamas as “militants.”
Instead, the BBC said, it will use the term “proscribed terrorist organization by the UK government and others, or simply as Hamas,” according to a press release issued by the service.
John Simpson, the BBC world affairs editor, published an essay on Oct. 11 saying that the reason the service shunned the label “terrorist” was because it was a “loaded word” which “people use about an outfit they disapprove of morally.”
“It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn — who are the good guys and who are the bad guys,” Simpson wrote.
Supporters of Israel have long accused the BBC of anti-Israel bias in its coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Last week, it was learned that the BBC removed several Middle East reporters from the air amid allegations that they posted support for Hamas in its terrorist attacks on Israel.
BBC News Arabic reporters — including those reporting out of Egypt and Lebanon — appeared to back Palestinians or criticize the Jewish state in posts they either tweeted or liked.
One of the reporters liked a message that appeared to describe Hamas terrorists as “freedom fighters,” the outlet reported.