Live: Hamas agrees to release 10 Israeli captives

The BBC, Britain’s most powerful media institution, has played a pivotal role in shaping public understanding of Israel’s war on Gaza - and in doing so, has repeatedly chosen to obscure, minimise and sanitise one of the most brutal military campaigns of the 21st century.

A comprehensive new report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CfMM) reveals a damning pattern in the BBC’s coverage of the war: a relentless privileging of Israeli voices, a dehumanisation of Palestinian suffering, and a willful refusal to name - let alone interrogate - the context of occupation, siege and apartheid that underpins this catastrophe.

This is not about minor editorial missteps. It is about a systematic failure to treat Palestinians as fully human - as people whose lives and deaths deserve to be represented with the same dignity, gravity and moral clarity afforded to Israelis. 

It is about a publicly funded broadcaster abandoning its duty of impartiality in favour of a deeply politicised, one-sided narrative.

From the outset of Israel’s assault on Gaza following Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, the BBC framed the war not as a continuation of decades of colonisation, blockade and dispossession, but as a symmetrical clash between two sides.

Read more: War on Gaza: How the BBC sanitises Israel's genocide

Gaza’s civil defence agency says Israeli forces killed at least 18 people on Thursday, including 15 who had gathered near an aid distribution site in central Gaza.

Mohammad al-Mugghayyir, a senior civil defence official, told AFP that the deaths occurred as a result of Israeli shelling that began at dawn.

He said at least 15 were killed while waiting for aid, while three others died in separate shelling near Gaza City.

Good morning Middle East Eye readers, 

Here are the latest updates from the Israeli war on Gaza, now in its 621st day: 

• Gaza death toll rises with 72 Palestinians killed in latest Israeli strikes as of Wednesday evening , including 29 shot while queuing for food aid

• Gaza health officials report 140 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes and gunfire over 24 hours, warning the humanitarian crisis continues despite global focus shifting to Israel-Iran tensions

• Air strikes hit multiple locations leaving at least 21 killed in attacks on homes across Maghazi refugee camp, Zeitoun and Gaza City and five dead in Khan Younis encampment strike

• 14 shot dead at aid distribution sites along Salahuddin road where crowds gathered for UN trucks

• Israeli military response: Claims crowds approached soldiers in "threatening manner" in Nuseirat active combat zone. Says troops fired warning shots but "unaware of injuries"

• Aid-seeker death toll reaches 397 with 3,000+ wounded since late May, according to Tuesday's health ministry data

Throughout his life, Dr Mustafa Abu Sway has always performed congregational prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque alongside thousands of worshippers.

Even during Covid-19 pandemic closures, dozens were still permitted to pray at the mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites, located in Jerusalem’s Old City.

But this week, for the first time in his life, he found himself praying alone within the vast 144,000-square-metre complex.

“Even the guard wasn’t there,” Abu Sway, a member of the Islamic Waqf Council in Jerusalem, told Middle East Eye. “I was completely alone.”

The Islamic Waqf, or religious endowment, is a Jordanian-appointed organisation overseeing the management of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Read more: Amid Iran war, Israel seals off Al-Aqsa Mosque in unprecedented move

The Israeli military continued demolishing homes in Jenin refugee camp on Wednesday - home to more than 11,00o people, Wafa news agency reported on Wednesday

Israeli bulldozers demolished houses in the Al-Damaj neighborhood and the eastern part of the camp in the West Bank.

Video footage showed bulldozers razing multiple homes in Al-Damaj, with some buildings collapsing entirely.

On Tuesday, Israeli soldiers demolished homes in the central part of the camp, specifically in the Al-Samran neighborhood.

The destruction is part of a demolition plan of 95 homes, announced by Israeli authorities last week. 

A previous wave of demolitions of 66 buildings was carried out in March.

The Israeli military closed the entrance again to the village of al-Manshiya, southeast of Bethlehem in the West Bank, on Wednesday evening, reported Wafa news agency.

Khadr Abu Diyeh, head of the al-Manshiya village council, told Wafa that Israeli forces shut the village’s entrance with an iron gate just one day after briefly re-opening it.

Abu Diyeh added that this gate is the sole way to access the road between Bethlehem and the south.

Israel has placed the West Bank under lockdown, sealing the entrances of cities and villages with iron gates and concrete barriers since it started bombing Iran, decreasing mobility for Palestinians who do not have equal access to bomb shelters that others in Israel do.

The Israeli military raided the Wadi al-Jawaya community in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, following assaults by Israeli settlers on Palestinian shepherds in the area, Wafa news agency reported on Wednesday.

Israeli soldiers detained two residents during the raid. They also detained an activist while he was on his way to the village of al-Tuwani in Masafer Yatta and seized his vehicle.

The 2024 documentary No Other Land won an Oscar in 2025 for Best Documentary, focusing on Masafer Yatta.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa asked the Arab League for financial support since the Israeli government is withholding approximately $2.2bn in Palestinian tax revenues, Wafa news agency reported on Wednesday. 

Mustafa told the secretary general of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, that their support is essential to enable the Palestinian government to fulfil its obligations, including paying salaries and allowances to more than 170,000 beneficiaries and supporting more than 150,000 families receiving social assistance.

Israel has been withholding tax revenues under various pretexts since 2019. The tax revenues represent duties imposed on goods imported into Palestine either via Israel or through Israeli crossings.

Mustafa underscored the importance of international and Arab support in pressuring the Israeli government to release the $2.2 bn in tax revenues, also referred to as clearance funds.

The Palestinian government says the withholding of the funds has put it under severe strain, preventing it from fulfilling its obligations to provide essential services in key sectors such as health, education, social protection, and security.

Gheit says he will coordinate with Arab and European countries, as well as the United States, to exert pressure on Israel to release the withheld funds to Palestinians.

The Palestinian economy has been thrown into further jeopardy since last Tuesday, when Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich directed his office to cancel a critical policy for sustaining the Palestinian economy in retaliation for the decision by five countries to sanction him and fellow far-right minister, Itamar Ben Gvir.

The Israeli military raided several homes in the town of Deir Qaddis, near Ramallah in the West Bank, on Wednesday, Wafa news agency reported.

Local sources reported that Israeli forces targeted several houses, including those of former detainees, assaulted their residents, and threatened to re-detain former detainees.

The Israeli military installed a new iron gate at the main entrance of the town of Anata, northeast of Jerusalem, in the West Bank on Wednesday, Wafa news agency reported.

The gate effectively closes the checkpoint in both directions, aimed at restricting the movement and freedom of Palestinian residents, Wafa wrote.

There is another gate at the southern entrance to the town. 

Jerusalem is now surrounded by 85 barriers, which the Jerusalem governorate said in a statement is part of a strategy for full control over the city, including its Islamic and Christian holy sites.

The governorate expressed concern over intensifying Israeli actions, which it says are designed to keep Jerusalem in a stranglehold and isolate it from other Palestinian communities. Other Israeli measures it cited include an increase in military checkpoints, and an increase in land expansion and annexation plans.

It also added that the international community’s silence effectively grants Israel the green light to advance its "colonial and Judaization schemes". 

A Palestinian young man was killed after being shot by the Israeli military in the village of al-Walaja, west of Bethlehem in the West Bank, on Wednesday, reported Wafa news agency. 

The military assaulted 22-year-old Ali Hamza Hajajleh, and fired live bullets at him at close range after raiding his family's home, Wafa reported. His body was detained by the military. 

The correspondent added that the military also assaulted Baha' Khaled al-Atrash during a raid on his home in the village.

The military also detained Ahmed Na'im Muhammad Abu Khader, 20, from Aida refugee camp, north of the city.

Israel's attacks on Iran have united most of Israel following divisions over the war on Gaza, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Most Israelis support using force to destroy Iran's nucear programme, polling shows, despite retaliatory Iranian missile strikes that have killed 24 civilians and put normal life on hold.

"Netanyahu took a really difficult decision. On the topic of Iran, right now he is doing the right thing," Avigdor Lieberman, a former defence minister who quit Netanyahu's government in 2018, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, former Defence Minister Benny Gantz, who quit Netanyahu's war cabinet a year ago over disagreements about Gaza, was similarly supportive.

"On the Iranian issue, there is no right or left. There is right or wrong. And we are right," he told broadcaster CNN.

Israeli strikes and gunfire have killed at least 140 people in Gaza in the past 24 hours, Reuters reported on Wednesday. 

Some Palestinians in the strip believe their plight has been forgotten as attention has shifted to Israel's attacks on Iran.

At least 40 people killed in the past day were killed as a result of Israeli gunfire and air strikes, Gaza's health ministry said. The deaths included the killing of Palestinians seeking aid.

According to medics, separate air strikes on homes in the Maghazi refugee camp, the Zeitoun neighbourhood and Gaza City killed at least 21 people, while at least five others were killed in an air strike on an encampment in Khan Younis.

Fourteen more people were killed after Israeli forces fired at them, awaiting aid trucks brought in by the United Nations along the Salahuddin road in central Gaza, medics said.

On Tuesday, Gaza's health ministry said 397 Palestinians trying to get food aid had been killed and more than 3,000 wounded since partial aid deliveries restarted in late May.

"People are being slaughtered in Gaza, day and night, but attention has shifted to the Iran-Israel war. There is little news about Gaza these days," said Adel, a resident of Gaza City.

"Whoever doesn't die from Israeli bombs dies from hunger. People risk their lives every day to get food, and they also get killed and their blood smears the sacks of flour they thought they had won," he told Reuters via a chat app.

Amnesty International said on Wednesday that the world must not allow Israel's war on Iran to deflect from the suffering of people in Gaza. 

In a statement, Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnès Callamard, said: “The world must not allow Israel to use this military escalation to divert attention away from its ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, its illegal occupation of the whole Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and its system of apartheid against Palestinians."

The British Museum has ignored repeated calls by staff for a public apology following an event marking the anniversary of Israel's 77th Independence Day on 13 May.

The private gathering was organised by the Israeli embassy, with speakers including the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, and the UK minister for defence procurement and industry, Maria Eagle. 

Reportedly, comedian Jimmy Carr, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, also attended.

Images of the event circulated online showed the museum’s great court bathed in blue light and festooned with Israeli flags.

But the museum’s staff were kept in the dark about the event - they were simply informed of a “large corporate function” and instructed to leave early on the day “with minimal notice”.

Read more: British Museum ignores mounting staff anger over Israel event