NEW ARAB
A BBC correspondent has resigned in protest at the broadcaster’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict amid a whirlwind of controversies over the framing of the conflict, which has left around 3,500 Palestinians and 1,300 Israelis dead.
Bassam Bounenni, the BBC’s North Africa correspondent, said in a social media post on Wednesday that he had handed in his resignation to bosses.
Writing in Arabic on X, formerly Twitter, he said: “This morning, I submitted my resignation from the British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, for the sake of my professional conscience.”
Bounenni, who is based in Tunis and has covered the Middle East and North African affairs for 15 years – previously with Sky News Arabia and Al Jazeera – said the decision to quit his role was over the corporation’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
It comes after the killing of around 500 Palestinians at a hospital on Tuesday evening which Palestinians have blamed on an Israeli airstrike.
The BBC has received a barrage of complaints for its reporting on the Israel-Hamas war. The publically owned corporation, which was established in 1922 and aims to be “impartial”, is principally funded by TV licence fees paid by UK households.
Gaza Hospital Massacre: Israeli air strike kills 500 Palestinians
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On Monday, just a day before the bombing of the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City in which hundreds of civilians died, the BBC aired a discussion on whether there are Hamas tunnels under hospitals and schools in the Gaza Strip.
It was criticised on social media and highlighted on X by well-known British-Iraqi rapper and activist Lowkey in the wake of the hospital attack.
He reposted the BBC post, adding the caption: “24 hours after the BBC tweeted this, Israel bombed the Baptist Hospital in Gaza. It was sheltering patients and displaced people. It is estimated up to 300 people were killed.” That figure has risen to 471 Palestinians dead and over 380 injured.
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