Complaints about the Guardian’s coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict are not new. They come from both sides although the overwhelming number are from those who are pro-Israel. It is a steady stream from individuals, lobby groups and the Israeli embassy in London.

These complaints form one of the largest groups relating to a single subject that come to the readers’ editor’s office.

Since the increase in attacks by Palestinians using knives, guns and vehicles there has been a shift in the focus of complaints. It is not the body text of the stories about these attacks that is under scrutiny but the headlines.

One example is a complaint from Yiftah Curiel, the press attache at London’s Israeli embassy. He believes that all too often the “headlines of news pieces on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will turn events on their head, portraying perpetrator as victim”.

He complained about a headline on a story from the Associated Press. It was about one of four attacks on Israelis that left five Palestinians dead in one day.

Curiel said: “We would like to request a correction of the headline ‘Three Palestinian teenagers shot dead on West Bank’. The headline obscures the relevant and pressing fact that the youths themselves had opened fire at Israeli soldiers, while the headline basically insinuates that they were executed by the soldiers.”

(The headline to the original AP article stated: “Israel: 5 Palestinians killed while attacking Israelis”.)

In a later email Curiel said: “In fact, the sub headline in this case makes it even worse, almost insinuating that the soldiers were lying about being attacked (“Israeli security forces allege they were under attack before the killings – though no soldiers were hurt”), as if the fact that they weren’t hurt somehow undermines the veracity of the attack”.

I rejected the complaint because the headline is not inaccurate, nor in my view does it suggest that the three Palestinians were innocent victims. Three Palestinians are dead. But is it the whole story, no. Should headlines encapsulate the whole story? Traditionally they were required to capture the readers’ attention with the most significant part of the story: in this case the deaths. It was accepted that headlines were read in conjunction with the subheading and the article, which gave context.

A headline on the web may be the only thing a reader sees.

In this case the subheading is problematic, which was recognised by editors at the Guardian. This example has been included as one of three – the other two are not Middle East-related – in a general note to editing staff to be more careful about trying to give greater context within the furniture ie headlines and subheadings, to tell as much of the story as possible, especially where Palestinians are killed when attacking people.

These complaints about the Guardian’s coverage are set against a background campaign by Israel to challenge the media’s reporting on the attacks, particularly by foreign media. Earlier this month there was a hearing of the Knesset “sub-committee on legal warfare with respect to foreign media coverage – coverage which in the long-term erodes the legitimacy of (Israel’s) fight against terrorism”.

The Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem rejected allegations of bias in a robust response to the allegations made at the committee.

“May we state first that we disagree with the premise of the hearing – it presupposes two things: that the foreign media are biased and that that supposed bias undermines Israel’s ability to quell terrorist attacks. We do not agree that the foreign media are biased, and the legitimacy of Israel’s campaign against terrorism is entirely determined by how Israel conducts that campaign. It has nothing to do with the foreign media … There are cases in which headlines in the international media have been poorly chosen and failed to accurately reflect developments on the ground. These have been pointed out and corrected as rapidly as possible. Mistakes are made in all professions. Isolated mistakes – and given the vast coverage of this story, they are extremely isolated – do not constitute institutional bias. It should also be pointed out that headlines are never the full story and are usually not written by journalists on the ground, but by editors sitting in New York, London or other headquarters.”

It is also worth noting that editors and subeditors writing headlines for an agency report of an event a few hours old are cautious because the circumstances of many of these killings are disputed, certainly in the immediate aftermath. I support that caution. However, it is not necessary to accept allegations of bias to recognise that headlines in the internet age need to avoid oversimplification.