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Media Coverage of Hostage Release Was Shameful — But Three Outlets Disgraced Themselves

Released hostage Or Levy, Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, February 8, 2025. Photo: Haim Zach/GPO/Handout via REUTERS

On Saturday, there was no way for the masked terrorists — green headbands wrapped around their anonymous faces — even to attempt hiding the hideous abuses they had inflicted on their captives. No showy stage parade could distract the world from what was plainly visible: three Israeli civilians, violently abducted from their homes, now bearing the marks of 16 months of unspeakable torture.

As the families of Eli Sharabi, Or Levy, and Ohad Ben Ami watched live footage of their release, the initial flood of relief quickly gave way to shock and agony. Their loved ones were unrecognizable. It was a horrific sight.

 

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We have criticized the media’s coverage of these hostage releases from the very beginning. Sometimes, it’s sheer sloppiness —misleading terminology, factual errors, like outlets falsely referring to kidnapped Israeli civilians as “soldiers.”

Other times, it’s far more insidious: a grotesque imbalance, an eagerness to humanize Palestinian prisoners — most of them convicted of violent, deadly attacks against Israelis — while downplaying the suffering of Israeli hostages.

But even by these dismal standards, Saturday’s coverage of the hostage-prisoner exchange was a new low.

And a few media organizations in particular, deserve special condemnation: the BBC, CNN, and The Guardian.

The coverage of Saturday’s events does not deserve to be classed as news. The reporters who wrote these pieces and the editors who approved them are not journalists in any meaningful sense of the word. And their readers and viewers should know the sheer contempt these media organizations have for them.

The BBC’s reporting marked a new nadir for the taxpayer-funded British broadcaster, with its live news coverage stating there were “concerns over appearance of hostages on both sides.”

Yes, the publicly funded BBC referred to convicted terrorists, imprisoned for murder, as “hostages,” equating them with innocent civilians kidnapped by Hamas — a UK-proscribed terror group. And as for those “concerns over appearances”? That was how the BBC summarized the horror of seeing three innocent men tortured and starved for over a year, likening them to Palestinian terrorists who are fed, housed, and in no danger of being dragged from their cells in the middle of the night to be executed.

The BBC’s website coverage was no better. For hours, its live news homepage featured a celebratory image of Palestinian prisoners embracing their families, while the release of the emaciated hostages was relegated to the second half of the headline — deemed unworthy of the lead photo.

This wasn’t sloppy journalism. This was an editorial choice.

CNN’s coverage of the hostage handover also led with grotesque attempts to equate hostages and prisoners, with its lead story claiming that “many of [the prisoners] appeared emaciated and in poor health” — a statement that contradicts even the Palestinians’ own unsubstantiated claim that seven of the 183 prisoners were “transferred to hospital” upon release.

 

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Meanwhile, The Guardian described the Palestinian prisoners and the starved Israeli hostages as “gaunt captives” in a headline that amounts to journalistic depravity.

And yet, these are just three of the worst offenders — singled out because their coverage so clearly exposed just how deep the media rot has set. Western media outlets are quite literally adopting the language of Islamist terror groups, describing Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives as “hostages” and “captives,” making excuses, and acting as apologists for the same terrorists who starved these three innocent men after kidnapping them. They then have the audacity to draw morally repugnant comparisons to legitimately imprisoned criminals.

Too many journalists looked at images that echoed the Nazi Holocaust — and seemed entirely unaffected. Instead of doing their jobs and reporting the plain truth, they reached for language that softened the horror, describing the hostages as merely “gaunt” and “weakened,” “pale” and “thin” — glossing over their final torturous humiliation on stage.

On Saturday evening, Israel’s Government Press Office issued a statement condemning the media’s attempts to “establish a comparison and/or symmetry” between the hostages and the legitimately imprisoned Palestinian terrorists, calling it a narrative that “runs contrary to every ethical standard of journalism.”

The three outlets singled out here showed a total disregard for journalistic standards and, worse, for basic human decency. Their coverage wasn’t just biased. It was a moral disgrace.

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 Media Coverage of Hostage Release Was Shameful — But Three Outlets Disgraced Themselves first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.

The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.

They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.

Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.

Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.

The post Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.

The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.

Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.

He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.

The post Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.

Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.

Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.

Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.

Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.

The post Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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