BBC News

The BBC Governors’ independent panel report on the impartiality of BBC coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict recommended that the BBC should make public an abbreviated version of its journalists’ guide to facts and terminology. The following list of terms used in the conflict, their definitions, and notes for their correct usage, reveals a news organization trying to find a balance between accurate reporting and leaning towards the semantics of the Israeli side in the conflict.

A British peace activist shot in the head while observing the Israeli army in Gaza last year has died in hospital. Tom Hurndall, 22, of north London, had been in a coma since being shot in a Palestinian refugee camp. An Israeli soldier has already been indicted on six charges, including one of aggravated assault. Mr Hurndall was with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led group which campaigns against Israeli occupation using non-violence. Mr Hurndall’s family now want a murder charge to be brought. BBC News reports.

Israel has arrested a soldier in connection with a shooting that left a British peace activist brain-dead. Tom Hurndall, 22, was shot in the head while observing the Israeli army in Gaza in April, leaving him in a permanent vegetative state. The soldier initially said he returned fire at a man armed with a pistol but later changed his story, the army said. Israel first announced an investigation into the shooting in October. The soldier was appearing before military authorities on Wednesday to have his custody extended. It is not known when he was arrested. BBC News reports.

A Palestinian film that was banned from this year’s Oscars has been named among a record 55 movies in next year’s race to win the best foreign film award. Divine Intervention was rejected last time because Palestine was not recognised as a nation. But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which runs the awards, has now decided to make “an exception”. The academy, which runs the awards, has made the exception for several years regarding Hong Kong and Taiwan. Divine Intervention is about life under Israeli occupation.

There’s another significant anniversary this week, but not one that’s attracted the sort of attention the 11 September commemorations have. But there will be no internationally-observed minute’s silence for the innocent victims of Sabra and Shatila, or global news coverage about the survivors and their miserable existence at the scene of this evil crime.

It did not take long for things to go wrong. The moment Andrew lifted the camera to his shoulder, someone threw a punch. Suddenly, parts of the crowd turned hostile, screaming at us to leave.

Never, in 10 years of reporting for the BBC, have I experienced quite the volume of feedback, almost all of it hostile, generated by our coverage. And it would be wrong to leave you with the impression that it is all coming from one side. For every Jew who thinks the BBC is violently anti-Semitic, there is an Arab who fervently believes that we are pro-Israel.