The BBC has provoked outrage after one of its presenters said “Israeli forces are happy to kill children” during an interview.
Anjana Gadgil made the comments while she was speaking to the country's former prime minister, Naftali Bennett.
Following the incident, Gadgil appears to have deleted her social media profiles and the BBC has described her language as "inappropriate" and "not phrased well".
While speaking about Israeli military action in Jenin, she said: “The Israeli military are calling this a ‘military operation’, but we now know that young people are being killed, four of them under 18.
Gunmen attend the funeral of Palestinians killed during an Israeli operation in Jenin
Reuters
“Is that really what the military set out to do? To kill people between the ages of 16 and 18?”
Bennett said: “Quite to the contrary. Actually, all 11 people dead there are militants. The fact that there are young terrorists who decide to hold arms is their responsibility.”
He added that many of those responsible for terror attacks that had killed several Israelis over the past year either came from Jenin or had been trained there.
“Jenin has become an epicentre of terror. All the Palestinians that were killed were terrorists, in this case," Bennett said.
Gadgil then added: “Terrorists, but children. The Israeli forces are happy to kill children.”
Bennett appeared to take offence at her comment and said: "You know, it's quite remarkable that you would say that because they are killing us."
He then challenged her to define a 17-year-old shooting at her own family, which she explained the United Nations had defined militants as “children”.
Her comments sparked a furious backlash after the show aired.
People enter a camp amid an Israeli military operation in Jenin, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank
Reuters
A spokesman for the corporation said: “BBC News has received comments and complaints concerning an interview with Naftali Bennett broadcast on the BBC News channel about recent events in the West Bank and Israel.
“The complaints raised relate to specific interview questions about the deaths of young people in the Jenin refugee camp.
“The United Nations raised the issue of the impact of the operation in Jenin on children and young people.
“While this was a legitimate subject to examine in the interview, we apologise that the language used in this line of questioning was not phrased well and was inappropriate.”