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Surprise: Head of BBC News Caught Pushing Hamas Narrative in Leaked Zoom Call
The BBC logo is displayed above the entrance to the BBC headquarters in London, Britain, July 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Hollie Adams
When it comes to Israel, the BBC can’t seem to stop generating controversy.
As HonestReporting highlighted following last month’s controversy surrounding the airing of a violent anti-IDF chant at the Glastonbury music festival, the British public broadcaster has a long history of bias and misinformation in its coverage of the Jewish state.
This latest controversy (courtesy of the BBC’s CEO of news, Deborah Turness) is actually an offshoot of a separate controversy that rattled the media organization earlier this year.
In February 2025, the BBC removed the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone from its streaming platform after investigative reporter David Collier revealed that the teen narrator of the film was the son of a Hamas minister and that his mother had been remunerated by the production company responsible for filming.
The documentary was also found to have engaged in several instances of mistranslation, sanitizing the interviewee’s language by translating the Arabic word for “Jews” as “Israelis” or “Israeli forces” and representing the word “Jihad” as “battle” or “resistance.”
After the embarrassment of having to pull the documentary, the BBC apologized for the “serious flaws” it contained.
An @BBC news thread – for those who do not understand JUST HOW BAD the BBC Hamas propaganda documentary was. There have been several key scoops – and I thought I would bring the issues together.
Thread
— David Collier (@mishtal) February 21, 2025
In mid-July, the BBC issued a report admitting that the documentary had breached the broadcasting corporation’s editorial standards, and that it should never have been signed off on the film.
In response to the BBC report, HonestReporting’s Editorial Director, Simon Plosker, released a statement that read in part:
Apologies are not enough. It’s time for the BBC to start reporting impartially and to address those parts of its newsroom that are clearly incapable of doing so.
And now it seems that one of the parts of the newsroom that is “clearly incapable” of reporting impartially is the CEO of news herself, Deborah Turness.
This is Deborah Turness, the CEO of BBC News, on a staff call about the Gaza documentary which broke impartiality rules.
Incredibly, she doesn’t seem to know that BOTH the armed wing and the political wing are deemed terrorist organisations by our government. pic.twitter.com/jGuup6x0if— Nicole Lampert (@nicolelampert) July 16, 2025
A 30-second clip was recently leaked online and shared on social media showing Turness on a Zoom call with BBC employees, stating:
I think it’s really important that we are clear that Abdullah’s father was a deputy agricultural minister and therefore, you know, was a member of the Hamas-run government, which is different to being part of the military wing of Hamas. And I think externally, it’s often simplified that, you know, he was in Hamas. And I think it’s — it’s an important point of detail that we need to continually remind people of the difference and of that connection.
So, not only is a BBC executive trying to downplay the gravity of the serious breach of editorial guidelines that the British broadcaster admitted to in releasing the controversial documentary, but she is also creating a false division within Hamas that is not recognized by the British government.
Since 2021, the entirety of Hamas has been proscribed as a terror organization by the UK government. At the time of this designation, a Home Office statement declared that any distinction between a “military” and “political” wing is “artificial, with Hamas as an organisation involved in committing, participating, preparing for, and encouraging acts of terrorism.”
Perhaps this attempt to whitewash Hamas shouldn’t be so surprising, as the BBC itself has a policy of refusing to refer to the organization and its members as “terrorists.”
However, it should alarm every British taxpayer that one of the executives in charge of news at the British public broadcaster sought to revise reality to exculpate the BBC of any wrongdoing.
What does this say about the BBC’s impartiality? How can the average viewer trust any item that emerges from a newsroom run under the oversight of Deborah Turness?
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 Surprise: Head of BBC News Caught Pushing Hamas Narrative in Leaked Zoom Call first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.