Ever since Israel invaded Gaza — following the Hamas atrocity on 7 October 2023 — the bias in media reporting has been deeply distressing. Complete impartiality may be near impossible, but many of my fellow citizens once believed that striving for it was the BBC’s aim, even when it fell short.
Organisations, like individuals, cannot be perfect—but they can strive to be honest, principled, and as balanced as possible. That, however, is not happening across much of the Western media, with a few honourable exceptions such as Spain and Ireland. The reporting in the United States is even more skewed than in the UK.
I’ve been a lifelong listener and supporter of the BBC, but I’m now ashamed of my government and of the BBC’s reporting on Gaza. The hypocrisy is visceral. The moment Russia invaded Ukraine, our government rightly condemned the invasion, sanctioned Russian interests, and came to the support of Ukraine. The BBC’s coverage of that war has been exemplary. The BBC interviews Putin’s representatives when appropriate—but not every time they attack Ukraine.
Contrast that with the BBC’s treatment of Gaza. The BBC consistently undermine the credibility of statistics emerging from the territory by qualifying every figure as coming from “the Hamas-run Health Ministry” and reminding the audience that Hamas is “a proscribed organisation.”
I have written to the Today Programme numerous times with figures from UNRWA, but even then, I feel, the BBC bought into Netanyahu’s lies. Israel accused nine of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees of involvement in the Hamas atrocity. To this day, Israel has provided no proof. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that even one employee was guilty—is that enough to dismiss the credibility of an entire humanitarian organisation?
Does the BBC discredit the entire British police force because of the actions of PC Wayne Couzens—the rapist and murderer of Sarah Everard? You have helped Israel delegitimise the UN and its agencies working in Gaza. The UN is far from perfect, but it remains the most hopeful humanitarian institution we have, and its agencies have done outstanding work improving the lives of the poorest and most oppressed. The least the BBC could do is cite statistics from UNICEF. Instead, the BBC parrots IDF rhetoric after every atrocity.
Our government and the BBC once trusted and supported the UN. Now, it seems, the BBC is working to undermine it. The bias has been persistent for nearly two years. Whatever happens on the ground, the coverage rarely changes.
Anyone can look at Google Maps and see the destruction of 70 per cent of Gaza’s buildings, including hospitals and schools—yet the dominant narrative remains. When videos emerge of ambulances being fired upon, of unarmed, starving people being killed while queuing for food in the cruellest conditions, the UK and US media continue to echo the lies and denials of the IDF.
Another blatant example of bias lies in how victims are reported. We know the names, the faces, the identities of the Israeli victims of the Hamas attack. Palestinian victims, by contrast, remain numbers. Most of the Gazans killed have been buried in mass graves. We know of over 100,000 dead and injured; an estimated 300,000 more are missing—most likely buried under the rubble that was once their homes.
Israel does not allow foreign journalists to report freely from Gaza. It wants to hide the Gaza holocaust from view. Courageous Palestinian journalists have risked their lives to show the world what is happening, but the IDF is deliberately targeting them. By June 2025, Israeli forces had killed over 100 journalists. Many more have been injured or operate under constant threat; they use satellite phones to transmit footage, but even these signals can be tracked.
Even when they do succeed in getting footage out of Gaza, censorship follows. The BBC took down the moving documentary How to Survive a Warzone, which depicted life for children in Gaza. The BBC executives have since issued profuse apologies—not for the suffering endured by Gaza’s children, but because the film’s young narrator is “the son of an official in the militant group Hamas.”
The truth? He is the son of a scientist who directed agricultural policy in Gaza’s government, which Hamas administers. There is zero evidence that Ayman Alyazouri was ever a member of Hamas’s militant wing—he doesn’t even appear to have been part of its political wing. So why does the BBC continue to repeat this demonstrably false claim?
Similarly, the BBC dropped Doctors Under Attack, a meticulous documentary on Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and the murder of around 1,600 health workers. Channel 4, to its credit, was not so craven. You can still watch it on their platform.
People with a moral compass do not believe in bombing hospitals, schools, or homes. They do not believe in killing and maiming children. But many media outlets remain silent, bullied into submission by Israeli propaganda. To criticise Israel is instantly conflated with anti-Semitism by Netanyahu’s government. President Trump withdrew research funding from Harvard University, accusing it of anti-Semitism—because it allowed students to protest against Israel’s actions in Gaza. In my view, that’s nothing less than ideological bullying. When Jewish Holocaust survivors condemn the destruction of Gaza and its people, are they anti-Semitic too?
It’s not just our understanding of right and wrong that is being manipulated—Israel and its allies are actively working to undermine the very institutions of the United Nations that were developed over decades. And in doing so, they are creating excuses not to fund these institutions properly. That will have profound consequences for the entire world when—if—these genocidal actions finally end.
Israel has indoctrinated much of the world to see any written criticism as anti-Semitic. But what I see is a Palestine that is an occupied land with no army, no navy, no air force, and no modern weapons—while its occupier possesses all of these and uses them with overwhelming force against unarmed civilians in tents.
When the dust settles, who will be left to pick up the pieces?
If we truly want a more peaceful world with less suffering, then honesty—in journalism and in politics—is not optional. It is essential. And we must respect humanity and forge a world in which children do not die of hunger, as they are now starting to in Gaza.
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