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1,500 Breaches of Editorial Guidelines: BBC Excoriated in Scathing Report on Israel-Hamas War Coverage
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA.
On December 6,2023, HonestReporting highlighted significant issues with the BBC’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, nearly three months after the October 7 Hamas massacre.
After multiple serious violations of its editorial guidelines by journalists covering the conflict, we questioned whether the publicly-funded broadcaster’s reputation could recover. We also called out the corporation’s unconvincing defense of its editorial mistakes, as the BBC sought to justify its errors by claiming that its journalists were “reporting in difficult and dangerous conditions.”
This excuse was particularly troubling in the case of Jon Donnison’s coverage of the Al-Ahli Hospital incident, especially given that Donnison was reporting from Jerusalem, not Gaza.
The BBC’s coverage has shown little improvement since then, with HonestReporting repeatedly exposing further breaches of the corporation’s guidelines in its coverage of Israel (see here, here, and here).
This week, a damning report exposed the full extent of the BBC’s anti-Israel bias during the Israel-Hamas war.
The analysis, spanning four months of the broadcaster’s coverage starting on October 7, uncovered a staggering 1,500 breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines and highlighted systemic failures to maintain its commitment to impartiality and accuracy during a conflict that has fueled a troubling rise of antisemitic bigotry worldwide.
The BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times at the height of Israel’s war against Hamas according to this professional study in the @Telegraph: #BBCbiashttps://t.co/M6feRf7dPT
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 8, 2024
The 199-page report, reviewed by HonestReporting, was the result of an extensive investigation carried out by a team of around 20 lawyers and 20 data scientists, led by UK lawyer Trevor Asserson and his firm. The findings expose significant bias, with a consistent pattern of language and reporting that favored Palestinian narratives while downplaying or misrepresenting key facts about the conflict:
Broadcast of False Information — The Al-Ahli Hospital Incident
One of the most notable examples of the BBC’s reporting failures involved the Al-Ahli Hospital blast in Gaza on October 17, 2023. BBC correspondent Jon Donnison, reporting live, speculated that an Israeli airstrike was the most likely cause of the explosion that he claimed had killed 500 people. However, it soon emerged that the explosion occurred in the hospital’s grounds and was caused by a misfired rocket from Islamic Jihad, not an Israeli airstrike. Despite this, Donnison stated, “it is hard to see what else this could really be other than an Israeli airstrike.” Even after the truth was established, the BBC delayed issuing a clear correction.
Repeated Failure to Label Hamas a Terrorist Organization
Throughout its coverage, the BBC refused to refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization, despite its official designation as such by numerous countries, including the UK.
Instead, the BBC often portrayed Hamas in sympathetic terms, framing the group as a “resistance movement” and its fighters as “soldiers.”
This failure to accurately label Hamas contributed to a skewed portrayal of the conflict, in which the brutality of Hamas’ attacks, including the kidnapping of over 250 Israelis, was downplayed or presented in a neutral tone.
Particularly outrageous was a headline describing Hamas’s October 7 attack as a “spectacular” operation.
According to @BBCNews, “It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn – who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.”
And yet the BBC does a damn good job of portraying Israel as the bad guys. https://t.co/syr6Kvi2ys
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 11, 2023
Glorification of Hamas in BBC Arabic Coverage
In BBC Arabic coverage, the glorification of Hamas was even more pronounced.
For example, a report from October 8, 2023, showed celebratory scenes in Ramallah, with residents handing out sweets following Hamas’ attack on Israel. Rather than questioning or contextualizing these celebrations, the BBC Arabic segment amplified Hamas’s propaganda under the headline: “Hamas’s military prowess has shocked Israelis.”
Why does @BBCArabic cameraman Jehad El-Mashhrawi omit that the tragic death of his son in 2012 was the result of a misfired Palestinian rocket?
Is there anything else he omits in his heartbreaking firsthand Gaza experience in order to blame Israel?https://t.co/F2Xh01lpLc
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 21, 2023
Sympathy Imbalance in Favor of Palestinians
The report used artificial intelligence to calculate a “sympathy ratio” in the BBC’s coverage, revealing a stark imbalance favoring the Palestinian narrative. Headlines and body text overwhelmingly evoked sympathy for Palestinian casualties, while the suffering of Israeli victims was largely ignored or downplayed. Even when articles did include sympathy for Israel, it was often buried deep within the text, whereas sympathy for Palestinians was prominently displayed in the headlines.
This was especially evident in the coverage following the October 7 massacre, where, despite the unprecedented brutality of this attack, the BBC focused disproportionately on Israel’s immediate military response.
“Palestinian forces.”
Is this how you describe armed Hamas terrorists, @BBCWorld?
And you seem to have forgotten the bit where they infiltrated Israeli villages and towns, murdering and kidnapping Israeli men, women and children. It was more than just a rocket attack. https://t.co/AgLeA1nrk9
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 7, 2023
Inconsistent and Inadequate Corrections
The BBC’s failure to issue prompt and transparent corrections for its reporting mistakes was another critical issue highlighted in the report. In one example, after falsely reporting that Israel had executed 137 Palestinian civilians, this inaccurate information was repeated in six different broadcasts before the BBC finally issued a correction — 12 days later.
Downplaying Palestinian Terrorism
The BBC has consistently downplayed Palestinian terrorism while portraying Israel as a militaristic, aggressive nation. According to the report, the BBC suggested that Israel faced “no substantial threat,” effectively delegitimizing Israel’s right to defend itself. By contrast, the coverage of Hamas’s military strength and its role as a terror organization received far less attention.
Misleading Comparisons in Coverage
The report highlighted a specific example from BBC Arabic in November 2023, where a roundup of newspaper coverage contrasted a photograph of a Gazan girl after an air raid with a photo of an ultra-Orthodox Jew carrying a machine gun. The context of the second image was entirely omitted: the man was returning from the funeral of a Jewish student shot by Palestinians in the West Bank.
Furthermore, the photo was taken in October 2000, more than two decades before October 7, 2023.
Minimizing Israeli Victims
The BBC’s coverage frequently minimized the suffering of Israeli victims while giving detailed attention to Palestinian casualties. For example, a picture of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani used by the BBC on January 1, 2024, showed her smiling before the war, rather than the distressing image of her abduction by Hamas, which had been widely circulated.
Yet, even in the face of the evidence presented in the Asserson report, the BBC continues to deny that there is any substantial problem with its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
In response, the BBC stated it would “carefully consider” the findings but quickly moved to undermine the credibility of the research, questioning both the methodology and the use of AI. In the BBC’s typical evasive fashion, a spokesman for the corporation told The Telegraph: “We don’t think coverage can be assessed solely by counting particular words divorced from context.”
The corporation’s World Affairs editor, John Simpson, who previously justified the BBC’s refusal to call Hamas terrorists by stating, “It’s simply not the BBC’s job to tell people who to support and who to condemn,” also dismissed the Asserson report on X.
The BBC says it has serious questions about the methodology of the attack on BBC reporting of Gaza in today’s Sunday Telegraph. Jeremy Bowen and Lyse Doucet, who are singled out for vicious criticism, are known worldwide as two of the finest correspondents in world journalism.
— John Simpson (@JohnSimpsonNews) September 8, 2024
His statement perfectly illustrates the BBC’s ongoing issue of prioritizing neutrality over accuracy, and creating the false impression of two equal sides where none exists. This approach has long been part of the BBC’s defense, and Simpson’s justification for his employer mirrors the broadcaster’s broader reluctance to admit bias, even when faced with undeniable evidence.
This denial is not a new phenomenon.
More than 20 years ago, the Balen report similarly identified bias in the BBC’s coverage of Israel, yet the broadcaster has never released the findings to the public. For years, the BBC has fought legal battles to keep the Balen report under wraps, a telling sign of its damning contents.
The Asserson report is merely the latest in a long line of warnings. It reveals not just isolated errors, but a consistent pattern of bias that undermines the BBC’s journalistic integrity. But how can the BBC begin to address its failings when it refuses to acknowledge that there is a problem?
The question remains: how long can this continue? Can the BBC withstand any further blows to its credibility?
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post 1,500 Breaches of Editorial Guidelines: BBC Excoriated in Scathing Report on Israel-Hamas War Coverage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israeli Culture Minister Cuts Funding for Film Awards After Palestinian Drama Wins Top Prize, Chosen for Oscars Submission
A scene from “The Sea.” Photo: The Israeli Academy of Film and Television
Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar said his ministry will pull state funding for Israel’s Ophir Awards, which is the Israeli equivalent to the Oscars, after it awarded a top honor to a film that “defames” Israel’s “heroic soldiers,” he announced on Wednesday.
At this year’s Ophir Awards ceremony on Tuesday night, “The Sea” won best picture, which automatically makes the film Israel’s submission for the 2026 Oscars in the category of best international feature film. The drama, directed and written by Shai Carmeli-Pollak and produced by Baher Agbariya, also won best screenplay, best actor for the 13-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Gazawi, best supporting actor for Khalifa Natour, and best original score. The movie, filmed in Arabic and Hebrew, marks Gazawi’s first acting role.
The Ophir Awards are voted on by the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, a nonprofit organization that is the Israeli version of the US-based Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. It has more than 1,000 members, including filmmakers, producers, content creators, and actors.
“The Sea” follows a 12-year-old Palestinian boy named Khaled, from a village near Ramallah, who gets the opportunity to go the beach for the first time in his life on a class trip to Tel Aviv. When he is forced to return home at a military checkpoint, while his classmates continue on to the beach, Khaled decides to risk his life and dodge Israeli authorities on his solo journey to reach the ocean. “The Sea” premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival this summer and received support from the Israeli Film Fund.
In a statement on X, Zohar said that after the “pro-Palestinian” film, “which defames our heroic soldiers while they fight to protect us,” won the award for best film at the “shameful” Ophir Awards on Tuesday night, he decided to discontinue funding for the ceremony.
“During my tenure – the citizens of Israel will not pay out of their pockets for a disgraceful ceremony that spits on the heroic IDF soldiers,” he added. “This great absurdity, that Israeli citizens are still paying out of their pockets for the disgraceful Ophir Awards ceremony, which represents less than one percent of the Israeli people – is over. Starting from the 2026 budget, this pathetic ceremony will no longer be funded by taxpayers’ money. The citizens of Israel deserve for their tax money to go to more important and valuable places.”
Several winners on stage at the Ophir Awards ceremony, including Carmeli-Pollak and Agbariya, sported a black T-shirt with a message that called for an end to the Israel-Hamas war and said in Hebrew and Arabic “a child is a child.” Others wore shirts that called for the return of the hostages abducted by Hamas-led terrorists from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and talked about the devastation taking place in Gaza during the ongoing war. Acclaimed Israeli director Uri Barbash received a lifetime achievement award at the ceremony, and in his acceptance speech, he condemned actions of the Israeli government and Zohar, pleaded for an end to the war, and called for solidarity between Jews and Arabs.
“It is our sacred duty to bring all the hostages back to their families immediately,” he said. “To end the accursed war and replace the ‘divide and rule’ regime that has declared war on Israeli society!”
Other movies that competed alongside “The Sea” for best film at this year’s Ophir Awards included Nadav Lapid’s “Yes,” “Dead Language – which made its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and is an expanded version of the Oscar-nominated short film “Aya” – and Natali Braun’s “Oxygen,” which is about a single mother fighting to pull her son out of military service and his deployment to Lebanon.
Israel has had 10 nominations in the category of best international feature film at the Oscars but has yet to win. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences will announce on Dec. 16 a shortlist of 15 contenders for the 2026 Oscar for best international feature film. The final list of nominations will be announced on Jan. 22, 2026, and the 98th Academy Awards will take place on March 15, 2026.
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HBO Max Acquires US Rights to Scripted Series ‘One Day in October’ About Hamas Attack
Bartender and survivor of the Nova Festival, May Hayat, takes cover as rocket sirens sound, during her first visit to the scene of the attack, on the one-month anniversary of the attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas on Oct. 7, near Re’im, Israel, Nov. 6, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
HBO Max has acquired exclusive rights in the United States to “One Day in October,” a scripted series based on real-life, first-hand accounts from the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“One Day in October” is the first real-time scripted portrayal of personal stories from the massacre in southern Israel, where Palestinians terrorists murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages. The attack was the deadliest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“One Day in October” will debut on HBO Max in the US on Oct. 7, the two-year anniversary of the attack, FOX Entertainment announced on Monday. Filmed on location in Israel, the four-episode series is co-produced by FOX Entertainment Studios in partnership with Israel’s yes TV, the New York-based production company Sparks Go, and Israel’s ZOA Films, in association with Moriah Media.
The series “presents seven emotionally gripping and artistically interwoven narratives of love, courage, sacrifice and survival,” according to a description provided by HBO Max. “From families torn apart to moments of hope emerging in the face of unspeakable tragedy to incredible bravery against the odds, each episode reveals the human cost and resilience born out of chaos. The series portrays the victims’ and survivors’ experiences of that day and is brought to life by a distinguished cast and acclaimed creative team.”
“One Day in October” is created by Daniel Finkelman, founder of the New York-based production company Sparks Go, and Oded Davidoff, who is also the director and writer on the series. Sparks Go helped co-produce the series.
“The tragic events on Oct. 7 had a profound impact on all of us,” said Fernando Szew, president of FOX Entertainment Studios. “From the very beginning, we approached this series with the utmost care, sensitivity, and urgency to ensure that the stories were told with authenticity and respect and paying homage to the victims and the heroic survivors. Oded and the incredible cast, crew and teams at Sparks Go, ZOA, and yes TV have truly created compelling storytelling that we are proud to showcase.”
The cast includes Swell Ariel Or, Noa Kedar, Naomi Levov, Hisham Suliman, Wael Hamdoun, Yuval Semo, Avi Azulay, Naveh Tzur, Yael Abecassis, Moran Rosenblatt, Michael Aloni, Neta Roth, Sean Softi, Lior Ashkenazi, and Uri Perelman. The series features writing by Liron Ben-Shlush, Davidoff, Amir Hasfari, Keren Weissman, Orit Dabush, and Yona Rozenkier. Jim Berk and Sheldon Rabinowitz with Moriah Media are also executive producers on the series.
“For me, film and television have always been more than entertainment, they are a way to bear witness,” said Finkelman. “These are stories of ordinary people facing extraordinary moments. In a time when truth is fragile, the most powerful thing we can do is to appeal to humanity itself. My hope is that these stories will open hearts and spark meaningful conversation.”
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Merz Says Criticism of Israel in Germany Has Become Pretext for Hatred of Jews
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attends celebrations of the newly completed renovation of Reichenbach Strasse synagogue in Munich, Germany, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Angelika Warmuth
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday that criticism of Israel was increasingly being used in Germany as a pretext for stoking hatred against Jews.
Speaking at an event to mark the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Central Council of Jews, Merz said that antisemitism had “become louder, more open, more brazen, more violent almost every day” since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that ignited the Gaza war.
“‘Criticism of Israel‘ and the crudest perpetrator-victim reversal is increasingly a pretext under which the poison of antisemitism is spread,” he said.
Germany is Israel‘s second biggest weapons supplier after the US, and has long been one of its staunchest supporters, in part because of historical guilt for the Nazi Holocaust – a policy known as the “Staatsraison.”
Last month, however, Germany suspended exports of weaponry that could be used in the Gaza Strip because of Israel‘s plan to expand its operations there – the first time united Germany had acknowledged denying military support to its long-time ally.
The decision followed mounting pressure from the public and his junior coalition partner over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In his speech in Berlin on Wednesday, Merz mentioned his about-turn, saying that criticism of the Israeli government “must be possible,” but added: “Our country suffers damage to its own soul when this criticism becomes a pretext for hatred of Jews, or if it even leads to the demand that Germany should turn its back on Israel.”