Israel always and only to blame

Recently the BBC posted this report on their website, here's the whole report:

'The Gaza Strip will not be "a liveable place" by 2020 unless action is taken to improve basic services in the territory, according to a UN report.

Basic infrastructure "is struggling to keep pace with a growing population", the UN Country Team (UNCT) in the occupied Palestinian territory said.

It estimates Gaza's population will rise from 1.6m to 2.1m by 2020.

Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist movement Hamas seized power in the coastal territory in 2007.

Israel says the restrictions, which are policed with Egyptian co-operation, are necessary to prevent weapons reaching Hamas. Palestinians and human rights group denounce them as "collective punishment".

The UN report, "Gaza in 2020: A liveable place?", estimates the territory will need double the number of schools and 800 more hospital beds by 2020, and says it is already suffering from a housing shortage.

The report also says the coastal aquifer, the territory's only natural source of fresh water, may become unusable by 2016.

UN officials point to the difficulty of improving the situation given "the closure of the Gaza Strip, violent conflict, and the pressing need for Palestinian reconciliation".

"An urban area cannot survive without being connected," said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Co-ordinator.

Gaza has no air or sea ports, and the economy is heavily dependent on outside funding and smuggling through tunnels under the Egyptian border.

Even though Gaza has experienced some economic growth in recent years, the report says it "does not seem to be sustainable" and finds that Gazans are worse off now than in the 1990s.

Unemployment was at 29% in 2011 and has risen since then, particularly affecting women and young people.

Traffic through the cross-border tunnels was hit in recent weeks by violence between Egyptian security forces and militants in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, which borders Israel and Gaza.'

It was these two lines that particularly caught my eye:

'Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist movement Hamas seized power in the coastal territory in 2007.

Israel says the restrictions, which are policed with Egyptian co-operation, are necessary to prevent weapons reaching Hamas. Palestinians and human rights group denounce them as "collective punishment".'

The first line was interesting as it did at least acknowledge that Hamas seized power in Gaza and that they are Islamists, albeit the word terrorists was not used. The second line was also interesting as it did acknowledge something that the BBC rarely acknowledge, that Egypt cooperates with the blockade of Gaza.

Something made me check with News Sniffer as to how the article changed over time. Here's some of the changes, I think that they are interesting.
The very first version of the BBC report included this line:

'Hamas leaders in Gaza had hoped that the administration of the new Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a fellow Islamist, would ease the blockade but so far there has not been any sign that Egypt will open its border.'

That soon disappeared, I wonder why? Maybe it doesn't fit the BBC narrative to call Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood President, Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist. Linking the Muslim Brotherhood with Hamas is also tricky for the BBC, so maybe best to just drop this line...

Now this is interesting, that second line above started like this:

'Israel says the blockade, policed with Egyptian co-operation, is necessary to prevent weapons reaching Hamas. '

Reporting Israel's line without any countering 'facts', that will never do. So the BBC version changed to:

'Israel says the blockade, which is policed with Egyptian co-operation and has never been fully lifted, is necessary to prevent weapons reaching Hamas.'

And then to:

'Israel says the restrictions, which are policed with Egyptian co-operation, are necessary to prevent weapons reaching Hamas. Palestinians and human rights group denounce them as "collective punishment".'

The BBC try not to let people know that Gaza has a border with Egypt and therefore that Egypt is blockading Gaza just as much as Israel. Remember this post? After all how would that aid their narrative of a big bad Israel and poor defenceless Palestinians? How would it fit in with the BBC's support for blockade breaking organisations if people knew that Egypt was also blockading Gaza? People might start to wonder why only the blockade busters and other supporters of the Palestinians only protest about Israel's blockade of Gaza and not the Egyptian's.