Reflexively, I access the latest BBC report and I note that at last they are realizing that blanket approval for Israel/US genocide just won’t do. But is it enough to report the humanitarian catastrophe that is the relentless, remorseless onslaught? After all Israel’s lockdown of the Gaza Strip has been a humanitarian catastrophe for the last year.

Well I suppose I should be thankful for small mercies, but I won’t. The BBC now insists that "at least 25% of the casualties are civilians" (having added the "at least" since an earlier report) when it is clear from eyewitnesses including an interview on BBC TV News that the great majority are civilians ( see 'Inside Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital’).

In a BBC report titled 'Gaza conflict: Who is a civilian?’ we read,

"As the death toll mounts in Gaza, the thorny question is arising of who and what can be considered a legitimate military target in a territory effectively governed by a group that many in the international community consider a terrorist organisation."

So for the BBC it’s merely a "thorny question", but I hazard not for the hundreds slaughtered with US-supplied weapons and an invasion condoned by the West.

The same report continues,

"But when an Israeli military spokesman also says things like "anything affiliated with Hamas is a legitimate target," things get complicated.""

So it’s not only a "thorny question" but also a "complicated one." How complicated can slaughtering men, women and children get, I wonder?

But clearly someone, somewhere in the BBC hierarchy is getting nervous.

It continues,

"The first wave of bombings, which targeted police stations across Gaza, is a key case in question - particularly the strike that killed at least 40 trainees on parade.

"Analysts say Hamas policemen are responsible for quashing dissent and rooting out spies, as well as tackling crime and directing traffic."

"Analysts"? Which analysts? No doubt Israeli 'analysts’, but the very fact the BBC fails to identify these 'analysts’ reveals the slimy and dissembling nature of the BBC’s 'reporting’. And, as if to rub salt into the wound, the very same report tells us that,

"…the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which has raised the issue in a letter to Israel’s attorney general, says it appears those killed were being trained in first aid, human rights and maintaining public order."

The Holocaust that is Israel’s is just as much a war conducted through the media (see 'The Jerusalem Post explains why Israel has gotten such 'good’ media coverage’) as it is with the Zionist version of Dante’s Inferno (see 'It’s like Dante’s Inferno, a doctor describes Gaza horror’) which is why tackling the propaganda war conducted by the BBC on behalf of the Israeli state, is so important to expose.

The BBC 'report’ continues,

"The difference in numbers in the Gaza war is stark - Palestinians say more than 500 Gazans have died in eight days, compared with 18 Israelis from rocket fire since 2001.

"But experts say issues ranging from the parties’ intentions, the reasons for going to war, the actions taken to protect - or indeed expose - civilians, and the conditions on the ground, all feed into a much more complicated legal equation."

But it’s not Palestinians who say that over 500 have died, it’s all manner of organizations including the UN.

And yet again slaughter is reduced by the BBC to yet another anodyne and let’s face it, evasive comment, that it’s a "complicated legal question"! How many people have to die before it gets to be simple?

Also missing from the BBC’s "complicated" and "thorny" questions is the issue of the kinds of weapons being used including cluster bombs, depleted uranium and a new and even more barbaric weapon, the DIME,

"The Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy. These weapons have an enormous power to explode." — 'Horrific Unconventional Weapons used against The People of Gaza - Interview with Dr. Mads Gilbert By Akram al-Sattari’ By Akram al-Sattari.

This interview must be read for it reveals the true nature of Israel’s 'war on Hamas’ and ironically, Dr. Gilbert is the subject of the BBC video referred to above, though no mention of weapons that slice limbs off people and that allegedly contain depleted uranium.

"[T]hese weapons will have a cancer effect on those who survive. They will develop cancer we suspect."

"All that is happening in Gaza here now is against international law, it is against humanity.

"Almost all of the patients we have received have these severe amputations. They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion."

For it is simple, the Palestinians have been made the sacrificial lambs of the imperial lust for land and power and the BBC (and not just the BBC but virtually the entire Western media) is a willing, indeed complicit participant in disguising what is undoubtedly a war crime of horrific dimensions by masking over the actions of a criminal and terrorist state with slick and meaningless words that disguise the barbarity of Israel’s actions behind all manner of legalese and prevarication.