In January 2025 the BBC heavily promoted a multi-platform “investigation” by Nawal Al-Maghafi, senior international investigations correspondent for BBC World Service,” designed to persuade viewers, readers and listeners that an Israeli strike on a building in Lebanon in September 2024 was not justified.
As noted here, in April 2026 the BBC sent Al-Maghafi to interview Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa in Beirut – presumably with the approval of the corporation’s Director of Editorial Policy and Standards.
Al-Maghafi also produced additional reporting May 6 from Lebanon which appeared in written and filmed formats on the BBC News website and on Youtube and was promoted on social media:
Al-Maghafi’s reports focus primarily on events in three locations, one of which is Hay el Sellom in the Hezbollah dominated Dahiya neighborhood. There she interviews a man – presented only as Mohammed – whose son Abbas was killed in one of the April 8 strikes.
While Al-Maghafi states that Abbas was “the family breadwinner,” Mohammed himself claims to have been at work when he got news of the strike. Al-Maghafi reports:
He [Mohammed] is adamant that everyone who died were residents of the building. “If I thought there was even a 1 percent chance that someone from Hezbollah lived here, I wouldn’t have stayed,” he says. “I would never risk my son’s life.”
Despite her interviewee’s tacit admission that members of Hezbollah do use residential buildings, Al-Maghafi does not inform her viewers and readers that the Dahia district is a Hezbollah stronghold or that the terrorist organization has long made use of civilian buildings and facilities. Her report does, however, promote without challenge the terror group’s claims to have “never wanted war,” ignoring the fact that it started the fighting by launching attacks on Israel on Oct. 8, 2023 and again on March 2, 2026.
Al-Maghafi then tries to persuade BBC audiences that Hezbollah gained popularity due to Israeli attacks:
Following the death of his son, Mohammed expressed his sympathies for Hezbollah, asking it to defend Lebanon, in an interview with local media. That’s a sentiment echoed by many people we spoke to in areas that have been consistently attacked by Israel.
She goes on:
Some Israeli media reported Ali Mohammed Ghulam Dahini was killed in the neighborhood, and say he was a senior Hezbollah figure. We also found a memorial poster which describes him as a Hezbollah fighter. We asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) if Dahini was a target, but it did not respond to this question, nor did it provide specific information about who or what was being targeted in Hay el Sellom.
The BBC’s investigations apparently did not uncover Hezbollah’s April 8 announcement issued that an operative named Yahya Mohammad Hadrj had been killed in the Hay el Sellom neighbourhood.
Separately, the BBC apparently failed to have researched Abbas, the son of interviewee Mohammed. Independent journalist David Collier did just that, finding a picture of the son’s grave, complete with martyr images and visible Hezbollah affiliation, a revelation which completely destroyed Mohammed’s claims to BBC’s Al-Maghafi.
Al-Maghafi also visited Corniche al Mazraa. There she failed to challenge interviewee Noha, a fitness instructor who in the filmed version promotes the false claim that Israel “wants” Lebanon. Noha claims:
Why can’t we live a life like the rest of the world? Why? Why? Because Lebanon is beautiful and they want it? They don’t have a right to it. Lebanon is beautiful and it is ours. They cannot strike it because they want it.
In the written version of her report (which, like the one from January 2025, includes “additional reporting” by Jake Tacchi) Al-Maghafi tells readers that:
Noha questions why the area was struck. “The target was civilian. Certainly, a civilian target,” she says. “We are the ones who were hurt.”
We searched for evidence of a Hezbollah target and could not find one. We also asked the IDF, but it did not respond.
The Long War Journal reports that strikes in Corniche al Mazraa targeted a hangar and the Alma Research and Education Center notes that strikes in that area and others in central Beirut targeted “safe apartments and command centers used by mid- and senior-ranking commanders.”
Al-Maghafi also visited Sidon, with her written report telling readers that:
The southern city of Sidon was among those struck without warning, with bombs flattening the Hezbollah-affiliated al Zahraa religious complex. …
Al Zahraa’s cleric, Sheikh Sadiq Naboulsi, was also killed in the attack. He had deep ideological and family ties to Hezbollah, although did not himself hold an official position. Another man killed here – Mohammed Ma’ani – was a senior Hezbollah official in the group’s liaison and co-ordination unit. The IDF declined to confirm whether either men [sic] were the intended targets.
It has also been possible to identify seven of the other nine individuals reportedly killed here. All the available evidence suggests they were civilians.
Reports from around the time of the strikes include the name of another Hezbollah sheikh in addition to al-Nabulsi, citing Shia sheikh Muhammad Sbeity.
Also killed in Sidon were members of a Hezbollah-allied terrorist organization. Times of Israel reported:
The IDF also said Thursday that it had killed a top commander in a Hezbollah-allied militia in Lebanon, along with eight other operatives, in a strike in Sidon on Wednesday.
The strike killed Maher Qassem Hamdan, who the IDF said had been the commander of the Lebanese Resistance Companies in the Shebaa area, close to Israel’s border. The militia, also known as the Lebanese Resistance Brigades, is funded, trained, armed, and was founded by Hezbollah.
The military said Hamdan had been responsible for “recruiting terrorists, supplying weapons, and funding the Lebanese Companies” in Shebaa.
According to the IDF, Hamdan and seven other members of the militia fled from Shebaa to Sidon, where they were targeted and killed.
Notwithstanding Hezbollah’s recent policy change regarding the announcement of deaths of its members, in the days following the April 8 strikes, mourning notices were issued for scores of operatives belonging to both Hezbollah and its Amal ally. Reports also emerged concerning members of Iran’s IRGC.
That, however, is not the story that Nawal Al-Maghafi chose to tell. Towards the end of her written report (which was appeared in other languages), she promotes an unverified claim from “Lebanon’s health ministry,” without informing readers that it is headed by a minister who belongs to the same terrorist organization as the “senior Hezbollah political figure” whom she interviewed on April 17.
The IDF says it targeted 250 Hezbollah operatives that day but has not provided a full list of names. Lebanon’s health ministry disputes this, saying the vast majority of those killed were civilians. …
The IDF also said that most of the targeted sites were located “within the heart of the civilian population, as part of Hezbollah’s cynical exploitation of Lebanese civilians as human shields to safeguard its operations”.
Hezbollah denies this, stating that Israel targets civilians as a pressure tactic. The group, proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK, US and some gulf Arab states, added that it never wanted war and is acting in self-defence. [Emphases added.]
Just as has so often been seen in BBC reporting on events in the Gaza Strip, the BBC once again demonstrates that it is willing to uncritically amplify the propaganda – no matter how absurd – of terrorist organizations that launch attacks on Israel in order to promote the narrative of “Israel targeting civilians.”
This post first appeared at CAMERA UK.