A veteran BBC journalist has admitted his coverage of the bombing of a Gaza hospital was inaccurate but said that he "doesn't regret one thing" about his reporting.

BBC international editor Jeremy Bowen said he incorrectly suggested Al-Ahli hospital "was flattened" following the blast on October 17.

Speaking on the BBC News at Ten, Bowen said: “The missile hit the hospital not long after dark. You can hear the impact.

"The explosion destroyed Al-Ahli Hospital. It was already damaged from a smaller attack at the weekend. The building was flattened.”

Asked about the report a month later, Bowen told the Behind The Stories programme which was aired on BBC News on Saturday as part of the corporation’s commitment to transparency: “So it broke in I suppose mid-evening and to answer your question, no I don’t regret one thing in my reporting because I think I was measured throughout. I didn’t race to judgement.”

Asked specifically about the "hospital being flattened" comment, he added: “Oh yeah, well I got that wrong because I was looking at the pictures and what I could see was a square that appeared to be flaming on all sides and there was, sort of, a void in the middle. I think it was a picture taken from a drone.

“So, you know, we have to piece together what we see and I thought, ‘it looks like the whole building has gone’.

“That was my conclusion from looking at the pictures and I was wrong on that but I don’t feel particularly bad about that. It was just the conclusion I drew.”

The BBC journalist claimed that getting access to Gaza wasn’t easy because Israel hadn’t opened the border to the Strip and like Hamas, wanted to control what the media reported on.

In those circumstances, Bowen said the corporation had to “rely on things people say” as well as looking “at the multiplicity of videos” that are released before making a judgment on what to report on.

It comes hours after BBC Correspondent John Donnison wrongly suggested Israeli forces were responsible for the blast on the hospital.

Reporting the attack after 8pm on BBC News on October 17, he said: “It’s hard to see what else this could be really, given the size of the explosion, other than an Israeli airstrike or several airstrikes.”

The remark caused the Board of Deputies to complain to the corporation over the report.

Jonathan Munro, the deputy chief executive of BBC News, said the broadcaster's "language wasn't quite right" and explained: “The correspondent (Jon Donnison) was wrong to speculate about the cause of the explosion of the hospital.

"At no stage did he actually say it was caused by the Israelis... but nonetheless, when the impression is left that we've speculated, (it) is important to correct that which we've done."

The complaints were referred to the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU) by director-general Tim Davie. Last week, the ECU ruled that Donnison had not offered a “definitive judgment” but accepted that it was “not consistent with the BBC’s standards of due accuracy to offer any view about responsibility for the incident at a point where so little reliable information was available”.

BBC Correspondent Jon Donnison (Photo: BBC)

Hadar Sela, co-editor of CAMERA UK, said: “Anyone who was under the impression that the BBC had learned any lessons from its hasty assignment of blame to Israel for the explosion at the Al Ahli hospital on October 17th will understand from Jeremy Bowen's statements that they were sadly wrong.
“Bowen's arrogant declaration that he 'doesn't regret one thing' about his misreporting the hospital building as 'flattened' and his claim that he 'didn't rush to judgement' even though he amplified unverified claims from third parties is sad testimony to the standard of BBC journalism on display throughout this conflict.”

The IDF said the blast at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza was caused by a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group and released imagery and communications intercepts aimed at supporting their case.

Meanwhile, Hamas claimed an Israeli air strike led to the blast, with Gaza health officials saying it killed at least 500 people.