Sky News’ Anna Botting Defends Restraint On Reporting Hamas Baby Beheading Claims

Noting that five major British newspaper front pages feature news of alleged baby beheadings by Hamas, Sky News journalist Anna Botting defended the network’s restraint in deciding not to run the story.

In the Press Review segment Wednesday, Botting gave a first look at the day’s newspaper front pages with broadcaster Steve Richards and former Conservative special adviser Salma Shah.

Botting highlighted the widespread coverage of the gruesome story from Kibbutz Kfar Aza by major newspapers: “Many of the newspapers, The Metro, The Times, The Telegraph, leading on these reports from Kfar Aza. We saw our correspondent Stuart Ramsey’s report from there.”

Delving deeper, she continued: “It seems to have come from one Israeli journalist who said that she was told by soldiers there that 40 babies had died and some of them had been beheaded. Truly horrifying.”

Incidences of Hamas’ alleged baby beheadings were discovered by Israeli military in Kfar Aza and reports appeared to originate with journalist Nicole Zedeck who, like Ramsey, is on-the-ground in Kfar Aza for Israeli-based broadcaster i24 News.

Botting, however, went on to say that Sky News “have not seen the evidence” and “have asked the Israeli Defense Forces three times to confirm those numbers.”

“They have not,” she reflected, “yet that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. But we saw a body bag with one child in it today when we were at Kfar Aza.”

The cautious wait for verification comes as other major networks and anchors, from Fox to CNN, repeated the allegations and urged viewers “not to look away” from the atrocities committed on Saturday.

Following Botting’s explanation, Shah interjected to underscore the emotional impact of the report.

She noted: “Yes, and I think it’s important to recognize that emotions are very high at this point. And you are looking at women and children who have been murdered in this situation that is undeniable. I think there is an issue around the verification of this particular sentiment, which in itself is so horrifying, it could, it forces the emotions. So, it is very important to have the verification of something like this.”

Shah further pointed out how different newspapers handled the claims, their desire to run the story while maintaining a commitment to upholding journalistic standards, even in the face of horrifying allegations.

She observed: “Look down on the Metro here that you have up there, they’ve put it in quotation marks and they’ve talked about the Israeli claim of 40 babies having been beheaded. And if you look down some of the other papers, so the Telegraph, for example, they say that the Telegraph could not verify the claim.”

Shah added, in closing: “But it is important to say that we know that women and children have been killed in this massacre.”