Yahoo News BBC Arabic report ‘minimises Hamas atrocities’ included in English version
A BBC journalist has been accused of minimising the Oct 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel in an Arabic-language report that differs greatly from the English version.
Feras Kilani, BBC Arabic’s special correspondent, wrote an English and an Arabic version of an interview with senior Hamas leader Moussa Abu Marzouk, which contained widely differing accounts of the massacre of 1,400 Israelis by the group’s gunmen.
In the interview, published online by BBC News Arabic, Marzouk denied that civilians had been targeted on Oct 7.
But while in the English version of the interview Mr Kilani laid out evidence gathered by the BBC and other media outlets showing that Hamas had killed and kidnapped civilians, this was barely mentioned in the Arabic version.
In one passage, the English version of the online article states that “a senior Hamas leader has refused to acknowledge that his group killed civilians in Israel, claiming only conscripts were targeted”.
It goes on to say that Moussa Abu Marzouk told the BBC that “women, children and civilians were exempt” from Hamas’s attacks, adding: “His claims are in stark contrast to the wealth of evidence of Hamas men shooting unarmed adults and children. The proof includes video from Hamas body cameras and first-hand testimony given to international news networks.”
However, the Arabic version of the same passage states merely that “a senior Hamas leader has insisted that his group did not kill civilians in Israel, stressing only conscripts were targeted”.
While Mr Kilani reports as a claim by Israel that “more than 1,400 people were killed by Hamas in the 7 October attacks, most of them civilians” in the Arabic version, he fails to refer to the “wealth of evidence” gathered independently that Hamas shot civilians, which he mentioned in the English version.
The Arabic version also goes on to describe what happened on Oct 7 as the “operation carried out by the movement”.
Further on in the English article, Mr Kilani writes “a huge body of evidence has been gathered which documents the range of bloody acts committed by Hamas in Israel on 7 October.
“BBC journalists went to the scene of the attacks in their immediate aftermath and saw the bodies of civilians who had been killed.
“We have also verified CCTV footage which captured shootings by Hamas. Separately, footage from Hamas body cameras has been shown to the BBC and other journalists by the Israeli government.
“Other international news organisations have also pieced together, and verified, evidence of what happened on the day.
“The BBC challenged Mr Marzouk on this, but the leader, whose polished, measured manner during the interview sometimes slipped into irritation, did not answer the question directly.”
But this entire passage has been omitted from the Arabic version, which states only that “the BBC challenged Mr Marzouk on the video segments recorded by the body cameras of Hamas warriors, which show firing at unarmed civilians in their cars and homes but the leader did not answer the question directly”.
Headlines differ markedly
The headlines to the two versions also differ markedly, with the English version stating “Hamas leader refuses to acknowledge killing of civilians in Israel”, while the Arabic version reads “Musa Abu Marzouk to BBC: Hamas did not kill civilians in Israel”.
The Arabic version of the BBC article was translated for The Telegraph by two separate sources.
Jewish and media campaign groups have said that the differing treatment of the interview undermined the BBC’s claim of accurate and impartial journalism.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “The allegation that the BBC is giving different accounts to English speakers and Arabic speakers is extremely serious. The BBC must immediately investigate and provide answers. BBC Arabic risks becoming more of a propaganda outlet than a news service.”
Camera Arabic, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis, said: “The BBC’s Arabic-speaking audience deserves a better news product than it currently gets, with hard truths, crucial context and impartial terminology regularly spared from it while kept available in English, in an evident BBC Arabic attempt to cater for Hamas fans.”
Mr Kilani, 47, began his journalism career in 1995, as a documentary maker with Syrian state TV, before joining Al-Bayan in the United Arab Emirates and then moving to BBC World Service in 2009.
A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC operates in 43 languages and our reports are not simply translations of each other but will often differ based on contextual factors such as the knowledge base of each audience, and the other stories or interviews we have published on the subject.
“The articles you highlight, published three weeks ago, have both been through our robust editorial processes.”
