Telegraph article today: BBC headlines ‘three times as likely to vilify Israel over Hamas’
A study of BBC headlines since the Oct 7 attacks has found three times more were critical of Israel than of Hamas.
According to research by a media monitoring group, references to Hamas committing possible war crimes appeared once in the broadcaster’s coverage, while those featuring claims of Israeli genocide, famine and starvation appeared 45 times.
The study of BBC News UK headlines used since the terror group’s attacks on Israel in 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza, found that 11 per cent were critical of Hamas, while more than a third (35 per cent) appeared to be critical of Israel.
The study by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) will heap further pressure on the BBC over the fairness and objectivity of its reporting of the war.
The figures follow weeks of revelations by The Telegraph of one-sided reporting at the BBC, disclosed in an 8,000-word dossier compiled by Michael Prescott, a former standards adviser for the corporation.
Critics say that the BBC’s coverage of the conflict has helped fuel anti-Semitism and contributed to Jewish people in the UK feeling less safe.
Hadar Sela, of Camera UK, said: “For two years, BBC News headlines have displayed an almost naive acceptance of any claim made by Hamas, while treating statements made by Israel with the utmost scepticism. Such blatant bias has helped fuel a surge in anti-Semitism within the UK and turned Britain into a hostile environment for the Jewish community.”
The study examined all 2,542 headlines about the Gaza conflict published on BBC News UK between Oct 7, 2023 and Oct 7, 2025. It found that just one focused on a spate of brutal public executions by Hamas, while 33 headlines in two months carried claims that Israeli forces killed civilians as they sought food from Gaza aid sites.
Camera claims that Israel has been repeatedly accused by the BBC of using aid as a weapon of war, with the word “starving” or “starvation” appearing 21 times in headlines, the word “famine” 10 times and “war crimes” six. The words “genocide” or “genocidal” appeared in headlines 14 times.
The study found that Hamas fighters were referred to in headlines as “militants” and “gunmen” rather than terrorists. Camera found only one headline referring to “war crimes” by Hamas and just six about the rape and sexual violence carried out by its fighters on Oct 7 and against captured hostages.
It found that although there was widespread condemnation of the way Hamas staged the release of hostages, many of whom were severely malnourished, the BBC appeared to downplay the outrage.
There was just one reference in a headline to a “carefully staged handover” and one to the hostages appearing “gaunt”.
Camera claims this tone was also reflected in the BBC’s coverage of the original Oct 7 atrocities, which killed more than 1,200 people, with an absence of emotive language and an emphasis on Israel’s likely “retaliation” in its headlines.
Camera also accused the BBC of downplaying the false claims about the return of the body of the kidnapped Israeli mother Shiri Bibas, and the confirmation that her young children had been murdered and their bodies mutilated.
The broadcaster used an understated rather than emotive headline on the story by stating “Hamas failure to return body is new ceasefire setback” and “Israel says forensics show Bibas children killed by captors”.
Danny Cohen, the former Director of BBC Television, said: “These statistics are shocking but also unsurprising when you consider the influence of BBC Arabic, the BBC’s most toxic open secret.
“No other newsroom in Britain would tolerate this. Yet the BBC consistently denies BBC Arabic has a systemic problem and the channel continues to be relied upon as a news-gathering service for the wider BBC".
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/22/bbc-israel-hamas-bias-research/