After Israel’s Knesset passed a law in April 2024 facilitating the temporary closure of foreign media organisations deemed to be harming national security, visitors to the BBC News website saw several reports relating to that story – none of which provided an accurate and impartial account of Al Jazeera’s background and its record of collaboration with Hamas.
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On December 23rd 2025, the BBC News website published another report relating to that topic under the headline “Israel extends order allowing closure of foreign broadcasters”. Writers Emir Nader and David Gritten begin by telling readers that:
“Israel’s parliament has extended an order allowing the government to shut down foreign broadcasters operating in the country.
The legislation, passed by 22 votes to 10, expands temporary powers introduced during the Gaza war to shutter outlets seen as a threat to national security.
It allows the government for the next two years to cease operations of a foreign outlet even in peace time and without the need for a court order.”
As explained by the Times of Israel:
“The law was originally limited to the state of emergency declared at the start of the war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel. However, on December 1 this year, the Knesset voted to end that state of emergency.”
And:
“According to a statement on the Knesset’s X account, the amendment “allows, under a temporary provision valid until December 31, 2027, the restriction of broadcasts by foreign media that harm state security.”
The legislation allows such measures even in the absence of a state of emergency.
Under the law, if the prime minister determines that a foreign media outlet poses a threat to state security, the communications minister may order a halt to its broadcasts, if approved by the government or a ministerial committee. […]
The legislation requires the prime minister to consult security agencies, including the police, before issuing a ban.”
Making no effort to provide readers with objective information concerning Al Jazeera and its documented support for Hamas, Nader and Gritten go on to present a cartoon-like portrayal of the broadcaster: [emphasis added]
“Originally dubbed the “Al Jazeera Law”, the powers were used to shut down the Qatari-owned channel’s offices and block its broadcasts in May 2024.
Israel accused Al Jazeera – which has been a strong critic of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza – of anti-Israel bias and of supporting Hamas in its coverage.
Al Jazeera denied the accusations and condemned Israel’s actions, calling it a “criminal act” and an attack on press freedom.”
They then quote a foreign-funded NGO without providing any explanation of its “particular viewpoints”.
“The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) said last year that the temporary order violated “freedom of expression, the right to information and freedom of the press, and blocks citizens and residents from receiving a variety of information that does not fit the Israeli narrative or is not broadcast on Israeli media channels”.”
ACRI has also been quoted in past BBC reports on that story, along with other bodies such as the Foreign Press Association (FPA) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The latter two organisations have also been quoted in BBC reporting on the deaths of Al Jazeera journalists in the Gaza Strip.
In March 2025 some of the BBC’s foreign language services reported the death of Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat, who had been cited by the BBC in the past. Although the IDF had exposed Shabat as a Hamas sniper months earlier (as confirmed in a recent report by the ITIC), the BBC chose to amplify denials – including from the CPJ.
“The Israeli military said Tuesday that the Al Jazeera journalist who was “liquidated” in Gaza—referring to Shabat—was a “terrorist sniper fighting in the ranks of Hamas.” […]
Last October, Israel accused Shabat and five other Al Jazeera journalists of belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, charges Shabat denied, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists , a US-based nonprofit organization.”
“Last October, Israel accused Shabat and five other Al Jazeera journalists of belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, accusations that both Al Jazeera and Shabat denied, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPP) [i.e. CPJ: Ed], a U.S.-based non-profit organization.
In an interview at the time with CPP Shabbat he said: “We are civilians… Our only crime is transmitting the image and the truth.”
Previously, the CPP denounced the Israeli authorities for “defaming murdered Palestinian journalists with unfounded ‘terrorist’ labels.”
That BBC Spanish language report goes on to quote a CPJ statement put out after Shabat’s death which includes the following:
“On October 23, the IDF accused Shabat and five other Palestinian journalists working with Al Jazeera in Gaza of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. CPJ has called on Israel to stop making unsubstantiated allegations to justify its killing and mistreatment of members of the press.
Shabat told CPJ in October that he was not a member of Hamas. “We convey the truth on Al Jazeera Mubasher, and we move within the areas classified by Israel as safe,” Shabat said. “We are citizens, and we convey their voices. Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth.””
Interestingly, the BBC did not tell its audiences that in addition to being employed by Al Jazeera, Hossam Shabat also worked for Drop Site News.
“When I contacted Hossam in November to ask him to write for Drop Site News, he was enthusiastic. “Greetings habibi. May God keep you. I am very happy to have this opportunity,” he wrote. “There are so many ideas, scenes, stories.”
His first dispatch for Drop Site was a searing account of a vicious mass expulsion campaign by the Israeli military in Beit Lahia that forced thousands of Palestinian families to flee one of the last remaining shelters in the besieged town…”
Since September 2025, the publisher of Drop Site News (which sent a representative to participate in the Global Sumud flotilla earlier this year and has a contributor currently involved in a legal case brought by a BBC editor) has been Nika Soon-Shiong.
Given her social media activity, it perhaps comes as no surprise to find that, according to an interview given at the time, Soon-Shiong “said she was inspired by the site’s critical coverage of the war in Gaza”.
Since 2021, Soon-Shiong has also been on the board of directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) which noted at the time of her appointment that:
“Soon-Shiong is also involved in journalism. She has reported for The Daily Dispatch, The Mail & Guardian, and The Los Angeles Times— where she serves as an informal adviser to her family, which purchased the newspaper in 2018 and has invested in its revitalization.
“I’m honored to join the fight to protect journalists around the world who are documenting the injustices of settler colonialism, mass incarceration, and political repression.”
As readers may recall, BBC amplification of the CPJ’s erasure of terror links of journalists – while simultaneously claiming that Israel deliberately targets members of the press – predates the war that began when Hamas invaded Israel on October 7th 2023 and has continued since. The BBC has also participated in a campaign organised by the CPJ.
Just as the BBC continues to fail to provide its audiences with accurate and impartial information about Al Jazeera’s record – including its employment of terror operatives (which is of course the context to the Israeli legislation that it has repeatedly reported), it is apparently equally disinterested in what may lie behind the CPJ’s whitewashing of Gaza Strip journalists’ links to terrorist organisations, despite the fact that it regularly and uncritically quotes and promotes that organisation.
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