The corporation’s executive complaints unit (ECU) investigated a broadcast on Radio 5 Live last September in which a Lebanese civilian living in Beirut – Sara Rammal – spoke about her experiences on a day Israel bombed the city.
Rammal was particularly critical of Israel and its government, saying that it was committing a “genocide against the Palestinians and Gaza” and that Israel is “a terrorist state”.
She further said that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who at the time was not wanted for arrest for crimes against humanity – “wants to take the land, that’s all he cares about”.
A listener complained that the interview with Rammal “lacked editorial rigour and allowed inaccurate and contentious statements to pass without challenge”, the BBC’s ECU said.
Summarising the complaint, it went on: “In particular, Ms Rammal said ‘we all know on October 7th the genocide against the Palestinians and Gaza started’, which (in the complainant’s view) perpetuated ‘the myth that ‘October 7th’ did not happen’; she referred to being brought up ‘on the border with Occupied Palestine’, whereas Aadaysit, her home town, is close to the border with Israel but not the territories of the Palestinian Authority; and she made comments which amounted to propaganda against Israel.”
It added: “The ECU considered the complaint in the light of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy and impartiality.”
In its ruling, which was published on Thursday, the complaints unit said it did not think that Rammal’s comments would have led people to think the attack of October 7 was on Palestinians rather than Israelis.
It said that her reference to her home town was materially important to the point she was making.
It said: “Consequently the ECU did not find there had been a breach of the BBC’s editorial standards of accuracy in letting these statements pass unchallenged.”
READ MORE: Police Scotland arrest man during King Charles visit to Alloa
However, the ECU did uphold part of the complaint, specifically around Rammal’s descriptions which painted “Israel as the aggressor and Hamas and Hezbollah as legitimate resistance movements”.
It said: “In the ECU’s judgement, due impartiality required that they should have been noted as contentious and treated as such, as should her statement that Benjamin Netanyahu ‘wants to take the land, that’s all he cares about’ and her reference to Israel as ‘a terrorist state’.”
It comes after The National revealed that in 2024 the BBC issued more corrections about its coverage of Israel and Palestine than any other topic.
Further, it received 104 complaints about the coverage which were sent to the ECU for a ruling. Only one was upheld, which related to a broadcast of The World At One on BBC Radio 4 on June 6, during which two expert witnesses of the Rwanda genocide were asked about parallels between what they had seen and what was happening in Gaza.
Both agreed that the events in Gaza could constitute genocide, the ECU ruled, therefore the BBC had faltered by “not challenging the impression of consensus or reflecting an alternative viewpoint”.