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BBC Hits New Low in Repeatedly Comparing Israeli Hostages to Palestinian Terrorists

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 via Reuters Connect

The media’s coverage of the release of the first three Israeli hostages from Hamas captivity was revolting.

Several major news outlets drew grotesque comparisons between well-fed Palestinian detainees — most of whom were jailed for violent and deadly offenses — and the visibly emaciated Israeli hostages Eli Sharabi, Or Levy, and Ohad Ben Ami, who spent 491 days underground, malnourished, and subjected to torture.

The false equivalence was so extreme that Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO) issued a statement condemning these attempts to blur the distinction between convicted criminals and their victims.

HonestReporting called out — and successfully secured corrections from — several international news organizations, including NBC News and The Washington Post, whose reporting fell below even the most basic ethical standards.

Many outlets we engage with are at least willing to correct their mistakes. Sometimes, these amendments, retractions, and clarifications take time, but they do happen.

Then there’s the BBC — the outlier.

Despite being funded by UK taxpayers via the television licensing fee, the BBC repeatedly refuses to engage with legitimate criticism of its biased Israel coverage — both before and since Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

Rather than ensuring accuracy before publication or promptly correcting errors, the BBC resists taking action until it is quite literally forced to — usually after an intense and coordinated backlash makes the misreporting impossible to ignore.

The result? Barely a month goes by without the BBC issuing a public correction and apology — a recurring embarrassment gleefully reported by UK media as yet another example of the broadcaster’s journalistic failures.

And the male hostage exchange was no exception.

First, the BBC was once again forced into a public apology after one of its news anchors, Nicky Schiller, referred to the three Israeli hostages as “Israeli prisoners” of Hamas. Hours later, the network issued an on-air correction and apology, calling it a mistake.

But what kind of honest “mistake” is immediately repeated within 24 hours?

The very next day, as the BBC covered the release of the three emaciated hostages — exchanged for 183 Palestinian prisoners — it ran a glaringly misleading strapline across the bottom of its live news coverage: “Concerns over [the] appearance of hostages on both sides.” [Emphasis added]

Let’s set aside the fact that the appearance of three starved, brutalized Israelis sparked far more than mere “concerns” — with their skeletal frames drawing comparisons to Nazi concentration camp survivors.

Who at the BBC thought that this grotesque false equivalence between convicted criminals and innocent hostages was remotely appropriate?

And if anyone still believes these incidents were just “mistakes,” as the BBC insists, or mere sloppiness, fast forward another 12 hours to high-profile BBC anchor Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday morning interview with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

In a brazen display of false equivalence, Kuenssberg used the horrifying condition of the freed Israeli hostages as a springboard to push baseless allegations of abuse in Israeli prisons — a remark Herzog rightly called “outrageous” for its vile moral equivalence.

By now, it’s abundantly clear: this isn’t a string of unfortunate editorial slip-ups.

This is a pattern.

Whether it’s drawing a grotesque equivalence between Israeli hostages and the terrorists who kidnapped them and murdered their families, or describing 9-year-old Emily Hand — who was violently abducted from her kibbutz on October 7 — as simply having “gone missing” (as the BBC did), the BBC has made its position clear.

This time, the BBC’s bias must be properly scrutinized.

The broadcaster has repeatedly defended its disgraceful coverage, particularly its insistence on “both-siding” the conflict in the name of so-called impartiality. But when “balance” means whitewashing terrorism and dehumanizing its victims, it’s time to call it what it is: a complete failure of journalism.

The corporation’s ongoing insistence on applying this warped notion of impartiality to Hamas — a terrorist organization banned in the UK, one that Britons are legally prohibited from supporting under the UK’s Terrorism Act — speaks volumes about the editorial decisions coming from the top.

Unless the BBC’s taxpayer funding is cut, this will not stop.

The truth is, the BBC is rotten to its core — and its audiences deserve better.

They deserve a public broadcaster that serves them, not one that sympathizes with the extremists who seek to destroy them and their way of life.

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 BBC Hits New Low in Repeatedly Comparing Israeli Hostages to Palestinian Terrorists first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire

Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.

Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.

Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”

As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.

“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.

Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.

The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.

Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.

Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.

Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel

People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas

Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.

“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.

“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.

Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.

The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.

In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.

“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.

“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.

In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.

Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.

In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.

“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”

Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.

Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.

To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.

In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.

Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.

Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.

The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.

The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns

Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak

The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.

Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.

With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.

The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.

Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.

Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.

According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.

With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.

In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.

The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.

Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.

The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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