Last week we documented a BBC News website report which misrepresented the number of hostages still held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip:
OMISSION AND INACCURACY IN BBC REPORT ON RECOVERY OF HOSTAGES’ BODIES
On June 25th we received a reply to our complaint to the BBC concerning both the English and Arabic versions of that report which includes the following
“I have looked carefully at your message and the report to which it refers. You wrote to tell us we had published the wrong figures for the number of hostages still being held in Gaza.
Our figures in the report did not take into account the three deceased hostages who had just been recovered.
We have amended the line to say: There are now 50 hostages being held in Gaza – 49 of whom were captured during the attack by Hamas, the Israeli government has said. Twenty-eight are confirmed to have died.
The source for this is: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/hostages-and-missing-persons-report
We have also written at the end of the report: Correction 25 June 2025: This story has been amended to say 50 hostages are still being held. It had previously said 53 were being held.
Thank for your pointing out our error.”
In fact, the original version of the report stated: “Some 54 of those captured during the attack by Hamas remain in captivity, including 31 the Israeli military says are dead.”
While the English language version of Thomas Mackintosh’s report was indeed amended on June 25th, the Arabic version of the same report has not been corrected. CAMERA UK has submitted a follow-up complaint.
Our original complaint also noted that both versions of the report failed to inform BBC audiences that one of the abductors of the body of Yonatan Samerano was an UNRWA social worker, noting that the omission of that information is particularly relevant in light of the BBC’s repeated promotion of UNRWA’s narrative concerning the participation of some of its employees in the October 7 massacre.
The BBC’s response to that part of our complaint reads as follows:
“You say you want us to state in this report that one of the deceased hostages, Yonatan Samerano, was abducted by an Unrwa social worker.
A video was released on Telegram on 11 October 2023 showing two men abducting Mr Samerano from Kibbuts [sic] Be’eri on 7 October. It was publicised by Israeli authorities in February 2023. Then defence minister Yav [sic] Gallant said one of the abductors was Unrwa social worker Faisal Ali Mussalem al-Naami. This was covered by publications in Israel and the US such as the Times of Israel – https://www.timesofisrael.com/video-shows-unrwa-social-worker-abducting-body-of-israeli-on-oct-7/
However, Unrwa said they could not identify the abductor in question as Faisal al-Naami. The news agency Reuters said it could not independently verify the identity of the abductor, either – https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-presents-video-allegedly-showing-un-aid-worker-taking-body-israeli-oct-7-2024-02-17/
Given that there is doubt over the allegations against Faisal al-Naami, we did not report them as true.”
CAMERA UK’s follow-up complaint notes that the two BBC reports did not in fact report “the allegations” at all – let alone “as true” – and that the corporation should have at least mentioned the existence of the video.
Update:
In response to our additional complaint, the BBC requested that a separate complaint be made to BBC Arabic concerning the misrepresentation of the number of hostages. CAMERA Arabic submitted a complaint and the Arabic language version of the report was corrected some two weeks later on July 8th.
