Victoria Derbyshire and the Telegraph’s Allison Pearson have been involved in an on-line spat over the BBC’s coverage of the Israel/Gaza conflict, specifically the truly tragic bombing of a hospital.
It comes as US President Joe Biden tells Israel not to ‘repeat mistakes’ made by US after 9/11, reports The Guardian.
What happened?
The tragedy at al-Ahli Arab hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip has seen a huge amount of deaths and both sides accusing each other over what happended.
Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli airstrike for the explosion that Gaza’s health ministry said on Wednesday had killed 471 Palestinians and wounded 314 others.
On the other side, Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group.
All we know for certain that a huge amount of people have been killed.
Victoria Derbyshire
With that in mind the Telegraph’s Allison Pearson wrote on X: “I see @BBCNewsnight has decided the Israelis definitely bombed the hospital. “The pictures speak for themselves.” Do they? Pictures on Al Jazeera show a rocket fired within Gaza landing on the hospital. Not the first time Hamas has killed its own people.”
Victoria Derbyshire replied on X writing: “Hi Allison I’m going to push back on this if you don’t mind; we were absolutely clear in our writing & interviews that Israel was blaming what PM Netanyahu called barbarian terrorists in Gaza, & Gazan health officials were blaming the IDF.”
One person wrote in response: “Well done, Victoria. You are a proper, professional journalist closing in on National Treasure status. Ms Pearson, as well she knows, is an agenda-driven, trolling hack working for the Nasty People.”
Carol Voderman also picked up on the row and wrote: “Victoria @vicderbyshire is one of the finest political journalists we have right now. Here she corrects Allison Pearson’s inaccurate claims about @BBCNewsnight coverage.”
Related: Carol Voderman’s comment strikes a chord as record number waiting for NHS treatment
