On the evening of January 15th the BBC News website published a report headlined “Gaza ceasefire deal agreed by Israel and Hamas, source tells BBC”. That “source” appeared to be a terrorist organisation proscribed by the British government:
“Israel and Hamas have agreed a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal following meetings with Qatar’s prime minister, a source briefed on the talks has told the BBC.
There was no confirmation from the Israeli government or Hamas, but a Hamas official earlier told the BBC it had approved a draft from Qatari, US and Egyptian mediators.” [emphasis added]
Over the next fifteen and a half hours that report was amended numerous times and the version currently appearing online is credited to David Gritten and headlined “Gaza ceasefire deal reached by Israel and Hamas”.
It includes a filmed report which also appeared separately on the BBC News website’s ‘Middle East’ page (as well as in additional content) under the title “Watch: How people in Gaza and Israel responded to the ceasefire deal”.
While that video shows interviews and scenes of celebrations in the Gaza Strip, it does not inform BBC audiences that armed Hamas terrorists took part in some of the street parades or of the documented chants such as “we are Mohammed Deif’s people”.
From its fourth version onwards Gritten’s report tells readers that:
“Hamas’s chief negotiator and acting Gaza chief, Khalil al-Hayya, said the agreement represented “a milestone in the conflict with the enemy, on the path to achieving our people’s goals of liberation and return”.
The group, he added, would now seek to “rebuild Gaza again, alleviate the pain, heal the wounds”.
But he also warned “we will not forget, and we will not forgive” the suffering inflicted on Palestinians in Gaza.”
Gritten did not bother to inform BBC audiences that Khalil al-Hayya made those statements during a televised speech aired, unsurprisingly, by the Qatari channel Al Jazeera (which, as readers may recall, was the recipient of an award presented by al-Hayya in 2021).
Neither did Gritten bother to remind readers that “Hamas’s chief negotiator and acting Gaza chief” is the same person who, when interviewed by the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen in October 2024, denied that his terrorist organisation had targeted Israeli civilians during the massacre it perpetrated a year earlier.
Gritten’s short and tepid summary completely fails to adequately inform BBC audiences of the content and significance of that speech. As reported by the Times of Israel:
“Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya praised the October 7 massacre as a major achievement that would be taught to future generations of Palestinians with pride, while touting the ceasefire-hostage deal that was announced shortly before he spoke Wednesday as a “historic moment.”
“Our people have thwarted the declared and hidden goals of the occupation. Today we prove that the occupation will never defeat our people and their resistance,” al-Hayya was quoted as saying during a televised speech from Qatar.
He praised the Hamas-led massacres of Israelis on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 captives, amid atrocities including rape and torture.
The deadliest slaughter of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust was a “military accomplishment” and “a source of pride for our people… to be passed down from generation to generation,” al-Hayya said.
Hamas’s top negotiator in the ceasefire and hostage talks said despite suing for an end to the war, the group would continue to pursue Israel’s destruction, looking toward Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a “compass.”
“Our people will expel the occupation from our land and from Jerusalem at the earliest time possible,” said al-Hayya.
“Our enemy will never see a moment of weakness from us,” he added.”
Had David Gritten provided BBC audiences with an accurate and representative portrayal of the speech delivered by Khalil al-Hayya on the day the ceasefire was announced, they would of course have been better equipped to put related statements concerning “peace”, “security” and “a two-state solution” made by their own politicians and public figures into proportion and context.
Related Articles:
MORE BBC AMPLIFICATION OF AL JAZEERA’S ‘TARGETING JOURNALISTS’ FALSEHOOD
PROPAGANDA, HATE SPEECH AND DISINFORMATION: THE BBC’S IDEA OF ‘A RANGE OF PERSPECTIVES’