Ex-Israeli army chief met UK news editors to ‘cultivate support’ for Gaza genocide
By Alex Morris & John McEvoy, Reposted from Declassified UK, 27 February 2025
Israel’s former top military officer, General Aviv Kohavi held private meetings with the editors of major British news organizations one month after the Gaza bombing began, Declassified can reveal.
The meetings took place with Katherine Viner, editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Richard Burgess, director of news content at the BBC, and Roula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times.
Further meetings were due to be held with Sky News chairman David Rhodes at the Israeli embassy, and then shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, between 7 and 9 November 2023, according to Kohavi’s itinerary.
By this time, Israeli forces had killed over 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and Israeli officials had made several public statements of genocidal intent. Kohavi had only stepped down from running Israel’s military months earlier.
During his tenure, he justified attacks on journalists, saying the soldiers who shot reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank “showed courage” and that he had not one “gram of regret” for flattening the Associated Press (AP) office in Gaza.
The information about General Kohavi’s visit comes in documents obtained in Israel under the Freedom of Information Act by lawyer Elad Man and seen by Declassified.
They reveal how Kohavi’s tour of Britain was planned with support from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), and Ministry of Defense.
The trip was specifically designed to take advantage of a perceived “reversal in the attitude of Western countries toward Israel [in light of] the severity of the events… of October 7”.
To this end, Kohavi was tasked with cultivating support for Israel as it escalated its brutal military offensive in Gaza. His full itinerary can be viewed at the foot of this article.
A journalist who was working for the BBC at the time of the visit told Declassified: “I don’t recall any internal correspondence about the meeting, which the BBC would ordinarily send out if there was a high profile visit of this kind. I also find it very difficult to believe that the organization would hold an equivalent meeting with the Hamas government”.
The journalist, who requested anonymity, added: “Not only is Kohavi’s visit unprecedented but it’s also outrageous that one of the most senior editors at the BBC should court company with a foreign military figure in this way, especially one whose country stands accused of serious human rights violations.
“It further undermines the independence and impartiality that the BBC claims to uphold, and I think it has done irreparable damage to any trust audiences had in the corporation”.
‘Enhance the trend of support for Israel’
In planning documents for the November 2023 trip, IDF lieutenant colonel (reserve) Gad Yishayahu noted how “visits by high-ranking Israeli dignitaries to Western countries will help influence various target audiences and thereby enhance the trend of support for Israel”.
Yishayahu has worked on “crisis management” in the office of the Israeli prime minister, and served in the IDF’s special forces. He recently accompanied Israeli general Oded Basyuk on a secret visit to London, and is listed as a visiting lecturer at London’s City University.
The British media was seen by Yishayahu as a particularly valuable target within this Israeli influence operation.
“As part of the idea to influence influencers”, he noted, “we wish to hold meetings between Kohavi and senior media figures, including the CEO of the BBC… senior officials from Sky, and others”.
Yishayahu continued: “We see these meetings as highly important in dealing with individuals who have a significant impact on the legitimacy of the State of Israel in the Iron Swords War”, Israel’s war on Gaza since 7 October 2023.
It was also proposed that Kohavi meet with Madeleine Alessandri, the chair of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee, and “other senior officials from the British foreign, defense, and home offices”. It is unclear whether these meetings occurred.
Another target was General Sir Nick Carter, Britain’s former army chief who in 2020 signed a joint agreement with Kohavi to “formalise and enhance” military co-operation between the UK and Israel, details of which remain classified.
General Aviv Kohavi
Kohavi was the Chief of General Staff of the IDF between 2019 and January 2023.
In 2022, he sought to justify the IDF’s killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, an act which the UN described as “without justification”.
He claimed that Palestinian gunmen had “fired extensively at Israeli forces, recklessly and indiscriminately in every direction”, and that Akleh was “killed in a battle zone”. The Israeli soldiers, he added, “showed courage and determination to protect Israel’s civilians”.
The same year, Israeli forces flattened a high-rise building in Gaza housing an AP office in what was widely viewed as a war crime. Kohavi reportedly said the “building was destroyed justly” and he did not have one “gram of regret”, erroneously claiming AP staff had been drinking coffee with Hamas electronic experts.
In 2021, Kohavi also flaunted how he had been “responsible for the order to open fire” on Palestinian protesters during the Great March of Return in Gaza in 2018-19. Over 200 Palestinians – including 46 children – were killed as they tried to return to their ancestral homes, and over 36,000 were injured.
Prior to becoming Chief of the General Staff, Kohavi served as the IDF’s commander of the Gaza division, head of Northern Command, and director of military intelligence.
A spokesperson for the BBC told Declassified that Burgess met with Kohavi alongside other journalists, adding: “They were able to question him on the war in Gaza and the IDF’s tactics. We hold similar briefings with figures from both sides of the conflict and all stories”.
The spokesperson did not say how many other journalists were in attendance, nor clarify whether the BBC has held comparable meetings with representatives from Hamas. “We are saying that as a principle we meet with figures from both sides of conflicts and all stories”, they said.
The former BBC journalist commented: “The BBC and Burgess must put out a statement to confirm the meeting with Kohavi occurred, why it took place, and with whom. Furthermore, it should clarify if equivalent meetings were held with senior figures from the Palestinian side.
“It makes perfect sense that Israel would try to extend its influence over one of the largest broadcasters in the world, and now that it has been revealed this meeting took place it perhaps explains why there has been so much bias and distortion in the corporation’s coverage of Gaza.”
A Guardian spokesperson told Declassified: “Our editorial teams regularly meet with people representing a range of views on different issues to inform our reporting”.
They added that the meeting was “not an endorsement, but part of responsible journalism”, but refused to provide details about what was discussed.
A spokesperson for the FT said “Roula Khalaf met Mr Kohavi when he accompanied Israel’s ambassador to the UK to a meeting at the FT‘s office in London. This was a meeting conducted by a group of journalists who cover events in the Middle East”.
Des Freedman, a professor of media at Goldsmiths, University of London, told Declassified he could find no mention of General Kohavi in any BBC, Guardian or FT coverage since 2023, when searching on the Nexis database.
Sky, David Lammy, and Gad Yishayahu did not respond to requests for comment.
Guardians of power
Kohavi’s private meetings with leading media executives have come under scrutiny amid widespread public anger over the British media’s coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
An investigation published by Drop Site News in November 2024 alleged that Raffi Berg, BBC News online’s Middle East editor, “micromanages” coverage of the Middle East to ensure stories cast a positive light on Israel.
Berg has also boasted about being indirectly employed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) while working for the US Foreign Broadcast Information Service.
“One day, I was taken to one side and told, ‘you may or may not know that we are part of the CIA, but don’t go telling people’”, Berg recounted. “I was absolutely thrilled”, he continued.
It was subsequently found that Berg’s home office seemingly dons a framed letter from Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a picture with the former Israeli ambassador to the UK, Mark Regev.
The author of the Drop Site News article, Owen Jones, approached Berg for comment. Apparently contesting the claims, Berg said he had hired British-Israeli lawyer Mark Lewis, the former director of UK Lawyers for Israel, to mount a legal challenge.
The Guardian has also been criticized over its coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Declassified revealed last week that disgruntled staff at the Guardian have compiled an “exhaustive spreadsheet” with a “mountain of examples” of the paper “amplifying unchallenged Israeli propaganda… or treating clearly false statements by Israeli spokespeople as credible”.
Another insider told Novara Media in 2024 that the Guardian’s editorial leadership had “become more cautious and to some degree more gun-shy […] partly because the pro-Israel lobby is more aggressive in the UK than it used to be”.
Reacting to our investigation, professor Freedman told Declassified: “Obviously off the record briefings have a place in journalism. However, meeting secretly with a senior IDF representative in the middle of a genocidal campaign as part of an organized propaganda offensive raises serious questions about integrity and transparency.
“You would hope that news titles would go out of their way to avoid accusations of bias by rejecting the offer to meet privately and instead to put such meetings on the record.
“In reality, editors at the Guardian, BBC and FT appear willing to open their doors to Israeli spokespeople – no matter how controversial and offensive – in a way which is denied to Palestinian representatives.
“It reinforces growing public perceptions that Israel is treated with kid gloves and is another example of the media’s amplification of Israeli talking points in their coverage of that country’s war on Gaza.”
Alexander Morris is a video journalist and filmmaker based in London, UK.
John McEvoy is acting Chief Investigator for Declassified UK.
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