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You Won't Believe How the BBC Has Covered the Exchanged Hostages

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  February 10, 2025 1:15 PM

In recent days, more hostages kept by Hamas terrorists since October 7, 2023, have come out of the hell that was captivity. As if their situation hasn't been hellish enough, the BBC had particularly abominable coverage of these hostages.

The hostages were exchanged as part of a swap deal, with a disproportionate number of Palestinian criminals released in exchange for civilians such as Or Levy, who is only 34 but looks like a shell of his former self. And yet BBC referred to these nefarious characters as "hostages" themselves, trying to equate the two sides, with a chyron stating, "Concerns over appearance of hostages on both sides."

The outlet also bent over backward to point out that a quote saying Eli Sharabi, one of the released hostages, appeared "gaunt," came from his "British family," even though it was plain for all to see that the hostages had been starved and mistreated in countless other ways.

The original BBC News (World) post from Saturday currently has 2,200 replies.

Attributing such an objective observation to the man's own family as if it is a matter of opinion certainly appears to be an attempt to sanitize the issue, especially when it comes to the before and after captivity photos that have been circulating on social media. 

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It's also not difficult to see why such photos have been compared to those of concentration camp survivors from 1945.

From there, BBC anchors also attempted to grill Israeli officials as to whether they were the ones committing crimes. "Do you accept that Israel committed crimes against civilians in this war?" an anchor asked. 

President of Israel Isaac Herzog rejected the comments for the biased falsehoods that they were.

Over the weekend, BBC put out a piece online titled "Who are Israeli hostages released and rescued from Gaza?" One entry gaining particularly negative attention describes the plight of one of the young hostages, Emily Hand, an Irish citizen who turned nine while in captivity. The two-sentence mention of Hand states she "went missing from Be'eri" when she was really abducted by Hamas terrorists. 

Former Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar also posted on X commenting on the release of Hand, stating that an "innocent child who was lost [and] has now been found and returned."

Varadkar's post restricted replies and was hit with Community Notes for his sanitized view of Hamas kidnapping and holding hostage young children.

As shameful as this coverage is, this isn't the only incident of such bias from the BBC. Late last July, as we covered at the time, the outlet put out a curious obituary of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, with its live updates also portraying the October 7 attack in rather sanitized terms.

The Associated Press has also been called out for similar framing of the hostage deal, which is hardly surprising given the AP's past reporting on the Israel-Hamas conflict and also coming from an outlet that had reporters embedded with Hamas during the October 7 attack.

Just as the BBC tried to put it on the man's family for accurately saying that Sharabi appeared "gaunt," the AP put out an article on Saturday, "Who are the Palestinian prisoners released in exchange for Israeli hostages?" 

As some particularly noteworthy excerpts read, seeking to sympathize with those Palestinians:

Israel views the prisoners as terrorists, while Palestinians see them as freedom fighters resisting a decadeslong military occupation.

Nearly every Palestinian has a friend or family member who has been jailed by Israel at some point, for militant attacks or lesser offenses such as rock-throwing, protesting or membership in a banned political group. Some are held for months or years without trial in what is known as administrative detention, which Israel says is needed to prevent attacks and avoid sharing sensitive intelligence.

...

Some of the released men dropped to their knees as they stepped off the bus, weeping as they kissed the cold pavement. They were greeted by tearful relatives before traveling on to their homes throughout the West Bank.

...

Also among those released were 111 Palestinians from Gaza who were rounded up after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza. They had been detained without trial. The Red Cross brought them to the European Hospital in Gaza’s southern town of Khan Younis, where scores of people poured into the streets in celebration.

The article focuses entirely on these criminals, as well as the jubilation from their family members.