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BBC apologizes for anchor saying ‘Israeli forces are happy to kill children’
(JTA) — The BBC has apologized for an on-air interview in which one of its anchors told former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that “Israeli forces are happy to kill children.”
The journalist, Anjana Gadgil, was interviewing Bennett on Tuesday about the Israel Defense Forces’ incursion this week into the Palestinian West Bank city of Jenin. Twelve Palestinians, including a number of children, and one Israeli were killed in the operation, which lasted two days.
Israel conducted the operation to root out terror cells in the city and maintains that all of the Palestinian dead, regardless of age, were militants. Near the beginning of the 8-minute interview, Bennett repeated that message, to which Gadgil responded, “Terrorists, but children. The Israeli forces are happy to kill children.”
Bennett responded, “It’s quite remarkable that you’d say that, because they’re killing us. Now, if there’s a 17-year-old Palestinian that’s shooting at your family, Anjana, what is he?”
Gadgil’s remarks drew condemnation from a number of groups and public figures. The Board of Deputies of British Jews, an umbrella community organization, said it was “appalled” by her statement and that it would reach out to the BBC due to what it called “a clear breach of the Corporation’s own guidelines.” The Anti-Defamation League called the remark “slanderous and hateful,” and said it “speaks to a sustained anti-Israel bias within mainstream media outlets.”
Bennett tweeted that the conversation was “one of the most hostile interviews toward Israel that I can remember.”
In response, a spokesperson for the BBC told the Jewish Chronicle, a British newspaper, that the network apologizes for Gadgil’s statement.
“While this was a legitimate subject to examine in the interview, we apologise that the language used in this line of questioning was not phrased well and was inappropriate,” the BBC spokesperson said, adding that the network has endeavored to cover Jenin in an “impartial and robust way.”
The British Board of Deputies said it welcomed the “speedy response” from the BBC.
“I am pleased that the BBC have apologised for the clearly unacceptable language which was used in their interview with Naftali Bennett,” said Marie van der Zyl, the group’s president, in a statement.
Gadgil’s remarks come as the Palestinian Authority has called the operation a “war crime” and the top United Nations human rights official said in a statement that the operation “raises a host of serious issues with respect to international human rights norms and standards.” The U.S. National Security Council, by contrast, said in a statement that it “support[s] Israel’s security and right to defend its people,” though it added, “It is imperative to take all possible precautions to prevent the loss of civilian lives.”
The BBC’s apology comes about six weeks after CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour apologized for saying the killing of three British Israelis happened in a “shootout” rather than a shooting.
Bennett left Israeli politics last year after serving as prime minister for little over a year.
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The post BBC apologizes for anchor saying ‘Israeli forces are happy to kill children’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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