The BBC admitted on Monday, following criticism, that a Gazan woman it claimed died from starvation had leukemia, amending its article accordingly.
International media widely reported over the weekend that 20-year-old Marah Salah Mahmoud Zohry (also known as Marah Abu Zuhri) died from malnutrition in an Italian hospital after being evacuated from Gaza.
The BBC subsequently tweeted that Zohry “died of malnutrition,” giving its article this headline.
However, on Sunday, Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) said that Zohry had an aggressive form of leukemia, sharing a medical report regarding Zohry from the Nasser Hospital Cancer Center Outpatient Clinic in Gaza.
According to that document, Zohry’s blood film results were “in keeping with acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL).” If untreated, the average survival rate of APL is said to be less than a month.
Following this, Mike Huckabee, US President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel, condemned the BBC, calling on it to “retract the story and apologize.”
In a statement on Monday, a BBC spokesperson acknowledged that the broadcaster was “not initially aware that Zohry was being treated for leukemia.”
“In line with usual editorial practice, we added this to the story... after Israeli authorities put the information into the public domain. We have amended the original headline and tweet and added an explanatory note.”
The clarification in the article reads, “This article’s headline originally said that Marah Abu Zuhri died of malnutrition, with the introduction stating that she suffered a cardiac arrest and died on Friday. The headline has been amended to remove the reference to malnutrition being the cause of death in what the hospital described as a ‘very complex clinical picture.”
Sir Michael Ellis, a former attorney-general, told The Daily Telegraph: “The BBC’s anti-Israel reporting is an international embarrassment.”
Lord Austin, the UK Government’s trade envoy to Israel, told The Daily Telegraph that BBC director-general Tim Davie should resign if he “can’t get his house in order.”
“Time and again, the BBC is being caught out peddling misinformation and unfounded anti-Israel rhetoric. Once the world’s greatest broadcaster, now known for dishonesty and bias, it’s little wonder that the BBC has become the source of international derision,” he added.
Previous misreporting of Gaza starvation deaths
A similar proceeding occurred last month when The New York Times was forced to amend an article featuring a child it claimed to be dying of starvation, but who was actually suffering from a preexisting medical condition that impacted his appearance.
In its admission, the NYT said, “We have since learned new information, including from the hospital that treated [Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq] and his medical records, and have updated our story to add context about his preexisting health problems.”
The BBC also ran the same story, referring to the child as a “starving baby,” failing to acknowledge that a medical report issued in May 2025 by the Basma Association for Relief in Gaza showed that the child has cerebral palsy and hypoxemia.