"The hospital said she had suffered severe loss of weight and muscle, while Italian news agencies reported she was suffering from severe malnutrition."
However, the claim was met with a swift response from Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (Cogat).
According to Zuhri’s medical records, written by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health and obtained by Cogat, her blood tests revealed that she had "acute promyelocytic leukaemia" (APL).
APL is a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer caused by the accumulation of immature white blood cells in the bone marrow, leading to a deficiency in healthy blood cells.
According to Cancer Research UK, symptoms include bleeding (due to poor clotting), tiredness, vulnerability to infections and weight loss.
The BBC subsequently updated its headline to read "Malnourished Gazan woman flown to Italy dies in hospital" and added a sentence about Israel’s claim that Zuhri was suffering from APL.
However, the current version of the article still discusses how emaciated she was and echoes the UN's warning of "widespread malnutrition in Gaza".
A Cogat spokesperson said: “The facts which the report did not mention: 20-year-old Marah Zuhri suffered from leukemia.
"Italian authorities contacted Israel requesting Marah’s evacuation due to her illness, and Israel approved it. Her evacuation could have taken place earlier, as Israel had proposed several possible dates for the transfer.
“Israel facilitates the medical transfer of patients, with a focus on children, and encourages countries around the world to make such requests, while Hamas keeps cynically exploiting them for its twisted agenda.”
