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The British public broadcaster said the phrase to describe the Palestinian Islamist group behind the Oct. 7 attacks violates its editorial guidelines.
Hamas terrorists at the funeral of Hamas council member Ghazi Abu Tamaa, in Al-Hajj Musa Mosque in Khan Yunis in Gaza, Feb. 4, 2025. Photo by Ali Hassan/Flash90.
The BBC has ruled that one of its presenters violated editorial guidelines by calling Hamas a “terror group” during a June 15 broadcast.
British newspaper The Telegraph reported on Sept. 11 that the corporation’s executive complaints unit (ECU) ruled that it was wrong to use the phrase to describe the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is responsible for leading the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border invasion of southern Israel and many other acts of violence against Israeli civilians over decades.
According to the ECU, the British public broadcaster does not brand organizations as “terror” or “terrorist” groups because of “due accuracy and impartiality” and instead reports that they are designated as such by third parties.
Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organization under U.K. law.
The ECU added that the incident was “reported to the management of BBC News and discussed with the editorial team responsible.”
Less than two weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and then-British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak agreed that the BBC should label Hamas as terrorists.
“We are dealing with one of the worst terrorist organizations in the world,” the president told Sunak in Jerusalem, calling the broadcaster’s policy “a distortion of facts.”
“I know that in modern democracies, like ours and yours, you can’t interfere per se, but since the BBC has a certain linkage and is known as British all over the world, there has to be an outcry for it to be corrected, and that Hamas will be defined as a terrorist organization there as well,” said Herzog. “What else do they need to see to understand that this is an atrocious terror organization?”
Sunak responded that “we should call it what it is—an act of terrorism perpetrated by an evil terrorist organization, Hamas.”
A prominent media watchdog two weeks ago accused BBC Arabic of being “sloppy, reckless” and lacking in judgment after it platformed a Palestinian pundit who the broadcaster knew had celebrated Adolf Hitler and the killing of Jews.
The Telegraph on Sept. 6 quoted a spokesperson for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) saying this in connection with a July broadcast on BBC Arabic where the journalist, Samer Elzaenen, was quoted as an eyewitness from Gaza.
He is quoted as saying that Israel has a “starvation” policy aimed at “genocide and takeover,” according to the report.
A BBC spokesperson told the Telegraph that the BBC “should not have used” Elzaenen as a source.
