BBC aired Israel war crime claims made by ‘sacked aid worker with a grudge’
Wire desk byline Sourced from Xinhua, Dawn, Arab News, Anadolu and Minute Mirror. Translated and abridged by the GSRRA Desk.
Anthony Aguilar, who worked with a partner of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, was let go for poor performance and ‘erratic behaviour’Craig SimpsonArts Editor
The BBC aired Israel “war crime” claims made by a sacked worker with a grudge, it has been claimed.
Anthony Aguilar worked with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a scheme set up by Israel and the US in February to distribute aid in place of the United Nations.
Military veteran Mr Aguilar was hosted on the News at 10 by Jeremy Bowen on July 26, when he made claims that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was committing “war crimes” at aid distribution centres.
He has also claimed the GHF’s management of these sites was itself “criminal”, and this caused him to resign on principle from the organisation’s partner, UG Solutions. The company provides security for the GHF’s operations in Gaza.
Mr Aguilar’s motives for speaking out have been questioned by UG Solutions, which claims that its former employee swore to become their “worst nightmare” after getting sacked.
David Panzer, counsel for UG Solutions, said that Mr Aguilar had not in fact resigned, but rather his contract had been terminated for “poor performance, volatile conflicts with staff, and erratic behaviour”.
Following this, it is claimed that Mr Aguilar sent several messages to the UG Solutions asking for a new role. In one message, according to the GHF, he wrote: “Your best friend or your worst nightmare. Stop effing around. Put me back to work and let’s get this mission done.”
He is then alleged to have messaged: “Figure something out or I’m on a plane come Tuesday and the gloves are off.”
This was allegedly sent on June 21, and in July an interview was aired with the former Green Beret, who spoke from Washington on the News at 10.
In this interview, he told the BBC that he had seen IDF soldiers open fire on Palestinian civilians with tank and mortar rounds.
He said that the aid sites operated by the GHF were run in an “amateur” and “criminal” way, adding that he had never seen equivalent “brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population”.
Mr Panzer said that Mr Aguilar’s claims were unreliable.
Contractor for just 27 days
The company has also that claimed a memo raising concern about potential war crimes sent by Mr Aguilar to the press was “falsified”.
UG Solutions said that rather than the memo being dated from May, as Mr Aguilar claimed, it was actually drawn up in June after he had been sacked, and then had its date “falsified” to make it appear as though it was from a period when he was still working for the company.
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Mr Panzer said: “Mr Aguilar only worked for UG Solutions as a contractor for a total of 27 days. More than half of that time he spent in a hotel in Israel instead of on the ground at the distribution sites. Mr Aguilar’s claims to the BBC and others that he was an eyewitness to IDF actions are false.”
A BBC spokesman said: “The report contained video footage taken from inside the GHF compound which supported the interviewee’s claims. We also reflected the GHF’s statement that he was a disgruntled employee.
“The best way for these claims and counter claims to be verified would be for independent journalists to be given full access to Gaza.”
Reference Link:- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/01/bbc-aired-israel-war-crime-claims-sacked-aid-worker-grudge/?ICID=continue_without_subscribing_reg_first
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
