BBC apologises after calling October 7 attacks an ‘escalation’ in staff email
The BBC has apologised after referring to the October 7 Hamas attack as an ‘escalation’.
Listen to this article
An email sent to BBC news staff marking two years since the attacks carried a picture of Palestinian women and children picking their way through rubble and said: ““As we reach the two-year anniversary of the escalations in the Israel-Gaza conflict, we asked UK audiences what they want and need from news coverage moving forward.”
The email has fuelled fresh allegations of anti-Israel bias on the BBC. It comes after the corporation aired ‘death, death to the IDF’ chants during its coverage of Glastonbury.
Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC television, said: “This is shocking but not surprising. It is another example of the everyday, institutional bias at the BBC.
“To call the October 7 terrorist massacre an ‘escalation’ is deeply offensive. It is the kind of language Hamas might use.”
The BBC apologised after staff complained about the contents of the email.
A BBC spokesman said: “This internal staff email should have been worded differently and we’re sorry for any offence caused. We are editing it and will replace the text on our intranet.”
BBC Director General Tim Davie apologised over the Glastonbury incident back in July.
The BBC also sparked a major row after it emerged that the child narrator of a Gaza documentary was the son of a Hamas politician.
Last month the BBC was accused of ‘marking its own homework’ after an internal investigation found that the ‘death to the IDF’ chants at Glastonbury were not an incitement to violence.
Former director of BBC Television Danny Cohen told LBC last month that the chants were a ‘clear incitement to violence’.
The BBC’s complaints unit ruled that chants of ‘death to the IDF’ at Glastonbury did not breach editorial guidelines preventing the broadcaster from airing material that could incite violence.
The corporation said: “in the context of a performance at a music festival, the chanting of slogans can be regarded as primarily an invitation to endorse a particular attitude.”
Mr Cohen said: “I think this was the single worst failure of editorial standards by the BBC in recent memory.
