BBC fails to mention Gaza doctor’s Hamas-linked military rank despite year-long warnings

However, the complaints were not upheld by the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU), to which they concluded the omission of these details did not materially mislead audiences.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) sent the BBC a letter of complaint on January 3, 2025, detailing that a video profile published by the broadcaster’s Arabic arm, omits details about the focus of the report, Gazan doctor Hussam Abu Safiya.

The report is called, “What do we know about Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was arrested by Israeli forces?”, which was first published on December 30, 2024.

It details how he was arrested by the Israeli army, alongside other members of staff from the Kamal Adwan Medical Complex, which Abu Safiya headed.

In the initial complaint, CAMERA claims that Abu Safiya has a “‘colonel’ rank within the Hamas regime in Gaza”, referencing a blog post written by Eitan Fischberger, a Middle Eastern analyst and a former air force technician in the IDF.

Mr Fischberger’s Substack post links a number of sources where they address Abu Safiya as “colonel”.

The BBC responded to CAMERA on April 15, highlighting that they had “not provided a single Palestinian or international source supporting the allegation”.

However, the sources included in Mr Fischberger’s post were from the Facebook page, Medical Services - Gaza Strip, Quds Net News Agency, Alray (the Palestinian Opinion Agency for Media), Times of Palestine and Al Watan News.

Also raised in the complaint was that the hospital, Kamal Adwan Medical Complex, located in northern Gaza, in which Abu Safiya held the position of Director of the Children’s Hospital, was a military healthcare facility, referencing a report by CNN.

On December 20, 2023, CNN wrote: “The Kamal Adwan hospital falls under the General Directorate of Military Medical Services, which is a part of the Interior Ministry in Gaza, as the hospital’s Facebook page makes clear.”

The BBC responded to this by not directly addressing Kamal Adwan Hospital’s status, but referring to the broader story in the CNN report, which was on the Israeli interrogation of Ahmed Al-Kahlot, the director of the hospital.

CAMERA responded to the BBC on the same day, saying that “all the sources which cite Abu Safiya’s rank and the military nature of the hospital he ran are Palestinian and often Hamas-controlled”.

They provided further evidence consisting of seven press releases spanning from 2016-21, who addressed the Gazan doctor as “colonel”.

CAMERA urged the BBC “to correct the story on all platforms”.

On May 30, 2025, the broadcaster responded to CAMERA, saying “archived websites are not credible sources” and they had further “looked into credible Arabic and international news outlets” that covered the story of Abu Safiya’s arrest and detention by the Israeli military and found “none of them referred to him as a colonel”.

The BBC raised the fact they had quoted the IDF’s statement regarding the Gazan doctor’s arrest, that he was suspected of being a “terrorist” and for “holding rank” in Hamas, without mentioning a specific title.

They concluded by saying the complaint could be escalated to the ECU, which CAMERA did three days later.

In a letter to ECU, they reiterated their original argument, with evidence and further contended that the BBC, despite being “faced with the facts”, “changed the goalposts in their reply” to the complaint, claiming that the initial sources are "unreliable" because they are archived.

CAMERA then provided all the sources unarchived.

The letter, dated July 2, 2025, Richard Hutt, the BBC’s Complaints Director acknowledged CAMERA’s complaint that Abu Safiyah held a military rank, which had been omitted by the BBC’s reporting, writing “you are entitled to consider these essential details”.

Mr Hutt continued, however, that “decisions on what matters to cover in articles are expressions of editorial judgement and would only raise the prospect of a breach where the absence of information would mislead audiences on a material point”.

The Complaints Director wrote: “I don’t agree this happened here, or that the information you cite is essential to audience understanding.”

He said that “such ranks were commonplace and did not denote a military role”, referencing a quote from the Palestinian Military of Health which addresses the use of the rank of “brigadier general”.

Mr Hutt then addressed the status of Kamal Adwan hospital, writing that “it is nevertheless committed to treating civilians in times of emergency” and there are “claims that in fact Dr Safiya had taken pains to ensure the hospital was not used by Hamas and other groups”.

He concluded the letter by not upholding CAMERA’s complaint.

Rebecca Ryan, Campaign Director, Defund the BBC, told GB News: “If the BBC has been quoting a figure with alleged links to the Hamas authorities without telling viewers, that’s a serious breach of the BBC’s editorial code and its contract with the British people.

“After the BBC’s recent Gaza documentary scandal and other reporting controversies, public trust is already at an all time low.

“People shouldn’t be forced to fund this. It’s time to scrap the TV Licence.”

A spokesman from CAMERA told GB News: “Since CAMERA first notified the BBC about these facts over a year ago, editors have consistently denied their relevance to its Gaza coverage—despite both clearly indicating the potential involvement of the hospital and its staff in Hamas’s war effort.

“The persistent refusal to acknowledge inconvenient evidence exemplifies a broader pattern of misleading audiences, in both English and Arabic, whenever facts conflict with the narrative the BBC seeks to advance.

“This, in turn, underscores the urgent need for a parliamentary inquiry into the Corporation’s bias."

They further said that the ECU needs to come under “close scrutiny”, so that it “ceases to function as a rubber stamp for BBC Arabic editors and the threadbare justifications they offer for omitting crucial context from their reporting on Israel, Israelis and Jews.”

GB News reached out to the BBC for comment, to which they reiterated their response is reflected in the ECU letter to CAMERA.