From The New York Times to the BBC, some of the world’s most “prestigious” news organizations got the Gaza hospital bombing wrong when they took Hamas’ word at face value, reporting that an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital, killing 500. In reality, the blast, which ended up hitting the parking lot and killing far less than the figure reported, was caused by a misfire from Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The initial reporting fueled massive protests across the Middle East against the Israeli and U.S. embassies.
While some outlets issued corrections and apologies, the BBC’s international editor, who admitted he was “wrong” in his initial reporting, had a far different take.
During an interview on his own network about the Oct. 17 blast, Jeremy Bowen said he didn’t regret anything.
“The BBC was criticized heavily for its reporting of that event. Tell us what happened that night. And, you know, bluntly, where were you getting your information? And do you regret anything that you said that night?” a journalist asked Bowen.
During his initial report live on air, Bowen had said “the explosion destroyed Al-Ahli Hospital.”
“So it broke in, I suppose, mid-evening. And to answer your question, no, I don’t regret one thing in my reporting, because I think, I think I was measured throughout. I didn’t race to judgment,” he responded.
“But you said that building had been flattened,” the interviewer responded, challenging him.
“Oh, yeah. Well, I got that wrong because I was looking at the pictures and what I could see was a square that appeared to be flaming on all sides. And there was a, you know, sort of a void in the middle. And it was I think it was a picture taken from a drone. And so, you know, we have to piece together what we see. And I thought, well, it looks like whole building's gone. And that was my conclusion from looking at the pictures. And I was wrong on that. But I don’t feel too bad about that,” he answered.
Jeremy Bowen: "I don't regret one thing in my reporting because I was measured throughout, I didn't race to judgement"
— Avi Bitterman, MD (@AviBittMD) November 26, 2023
Interviewer: But you said that building had been flattened?
Jeremy Bowen: "Oh yeah well I got that wrong because I was looking at the pictures and what I could… pic.twitter.com/6Ge9I5zYrd
In the days that followed, the BBC issued a correction on some of its reporting of the incident.
We have reviewed our coverage of the immediate aftermath of an explosion at the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday night. During this our correspondent was giving instant analysis on the ground from Jerusalem in what was a confusing and difficult story. The programme repeatedly made it clear that it had yet to verify who was behind the blast, including in the questioning by the presenter. The correspondent said that the Israelis had been contacted and were investigating, adding “It’s hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli air strike or several air strikes”. He then explained that in his experience as a reporter in Gaza that he had never seen explosions of this scale caused by rockets being fired out of the territory. He again stressed that the pictures had yet to be verified.
We accept that even in this fast-moving situation it was wrong to speculate in this way about the possible causes and we apologise for this, although he did not at any point report that it was an Israeli strike. This doesn’t represent the entirety of the BBC’s output and anyone watching, listening to or reading our coverage can see we have set out both sides’ competing claims about the explosion, clearly showing who is saying them, and what we do or don’t know.