Key takeaways:
- Hamas has been operating out of hospitals and utilizing its expansive tunnel network to commit terrorist attacks since it took over the Gaza Strip.
- Despite the overwhelming evidence of Hamas’ violation of civilian locations as well as its tunnel network, the media rarely covered the issue during the past two years of war.
- By downplaying Hamas’ use of hospitals and tunnels, the media created a distorted picture of the terrorist organization Israel has been fighting to remove.
For the past two years, Israel has been fighting a terrorist organization that has employed guerrilla methods of warfare. From turning hospitals into command centers, to exploiting UNRWA facilities, and building a tunnel network spanning 350-450 miles long, Hamas has turned the rules of war on its head.
None of this should come as a surprise to news outlets. After all, it is their job to accurately report on all sides of a war, especially given that the evidence of Hamas’ tactics has been publicly available.
Except for the past two years, the media has largely ignored or downplayed the very nature of Hamas’ warfare.
The BBC has notoriously turned a blind eye to Hamas’ strategy since the beginning of the war. In November 2023, the BBC’s International Editor, Jeremy Bowen, desperately tried to rationalize the stockpile of weapons being held in Al-Shifa Hospital. This followed the IDF’s release of video evidence of Hamas maneuvering hostages through the hospital, as well as exposing tunnels directly below the facility.
For two years, the media seemed to forget the plethora of evidence that was becoming available in real time as the IDF expanded operations and discovered more misuses of civilian infrastructure.
Now, the BBC is attempting to turn back the clock in “Hamas ruled Gaza with an iron rod – will it really give up control?” Questioning whether Hamas will relinquish military and political control over the Gaza Strip, the BBC is suddenly acknowledging that Hamas has employed tactics of war that directly violate international law.
Where was this admission for the past two years? Why, only after a ceasefire is accepted, does the BBC feel comfortable publishing the truth about the war Israel has been fighting against Hamas?
In their piece, Paul Adams and Rushdi Abualouf interview Moumen al-Natour, a Gaza-based lawyer who Hamas has imprisoned on more than one occasion. This past summer, he was interrogated by Hamas in Al-Shifa Hospital. Hospitals are Hamas’ top venue of choice for conducting military operations.
Yet when Mohammed Sinwar, one of Hamas’ top leaders, was eliminated by the IDF as he was hiding in a tunnel beneath the same hospital, the BBC buried the story, merely referring to the event as an “Israeli air strike on [a] hospital.”
The BBC is not the only outlet guilty of burying the truth behind Al-Shifa. Footage from October 11, 2023, shows numerous Hamas terrorists at Al-Shifa Hospital, watching over the media and the arrival of new patients. Mysteriously, none of the Hamas operatives appeared in a single photo published by Associated Press, Reuters, or The New York Times that day, despite the presence of their photojournalists on the ground.
In the aftermath of HonestReporting’s exposure of the footage displaying Hamas members at Al-Shifa, AP attempted to backpedal and acknowledged that Hamas is present in medical facilities. Yet, it still stopped short of admitting the extensive tunnel network beneath Gaza’s hospitals that enables this abusive terrorist activity in the first place.
The BBC’s Adams and Rushdi refer to the tunnel network as “a project shrouded in secrecy.” But there was nothing secret about the underground system. Throughout the war, Hamas has published videos of its operatives in tunnels as well as propaganda videos of hostages being held in inhumane conditions.
Perhaps this is just the BBC once again attempting to justify its own reporting on the war. BBC Verify refused to believe IDF evidence of tunnels, repeating time and again that the footage of a tunnel next to a hospital was unverifiable.
The BBC also downplayed Hamas’ stronghold of Gaza City, only now to admit Hamas’ operational centers have been “concealed under Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.”
However, to report on Hamas’ abuse of civilian infrastructure accurately would require the BBC to acknowledge what Hamas is – a terrorist organization responsible for the horrific murders, rapes and kidnappings on October 7th, 2023, as well as countless other terrorist attacks throughout the years. And that would require the BBC to abandon the false equivalence it has maintained between Israel and Hamas.
Instead of acknowledging the root cause of the war and how Hamas’ use of civilian infrastructure and tunnels further entrenched the territory into war, the BBC, prior to the ceasefire, covered up the terrorist group’s responsibility and instead framed Israel’s defensive actions as disproportionate.
By refusing to confront Hamas’ exploitation of civilians and infrastructure, the BBC has misled audiences and eroded trust in journalism itself. If international media cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the nature of the enemy Israel has faced for years, they not only distort public understanding, but they also enable the very terror networks they claim to expose. Accountability and honesty are not optional in wartime reporting; they are the foundation of journalistic integrity.
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