Defence Secretary Grant Shapps criticised the BBC’s refusal to call Hamas terrorists in a tense exchange with broadcaster Mishal Husain on Friday morning.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, Mr Shapps claimed the BBC did not seem interested in condemning Hamas’s attacks on Israel and questioned why the broadcaster does not call the group ‘terrorist’, despite them being a banned terror group in the UK.
However, programme host Mishal Husain hit back by pointing to the BBC’s extensive coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, and said other major broadcasters were doing the same in line with Ofcom’s code.
Asked if the UK supports a reported Israeli order to evacuate the north of Gaza, Mr Shapps said: “It is good that they provided information in advance... Hamas certainly didn’t do that before they went and slaughtered people.”
He added: “And I would have thought a good start is to warn people in advance that the area that they are in is likely to be part of an attack where the Israelis are trying to get hold of the Hamas terrorists, who you don’t seem to be particularly interested in, and the BBC seems to refuse to call terrorists even though the British Parliament has legislated that they are terrorists.”
Hamas is a proscribed terror group in the UK but the BBC has declined to use the term in its own reporting, due to impartiality.
Hitting back, Ms Husain asked if he had seen the BBC’s coverage of “the atrocities, the dead, the injured, the survivors,” asking: “How can you say we’re not interested in those atrocities?”
She referred to the Ofcom code, saying: “Broadcasters are not the same as newspapers and indeed all UK broadcasters stick to the same language around terrorism and these groups that the BBC is.
“We are not unique in this.”
Among those who have called for broadcasters to describe Hamas as terrorists are the Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, who said: “If one doesn’t use the term ‘terrorist’, it is as if one is providing a window of opportunity for justification, and nothing can justify this.”
Separately, Mr Shapps urged Israel to comply with international law amid civilian casualties as it blocked supplies from Gaza after Hamas’s attacks.
Israel is thought to be preparing for a ground operation in the densely-populated enclave, which Hamas has controlled since 2007.
“We don’t know the detail of the Israeli plan. We do know, and President Biden downwards have made it clear that Israel will need to comply with international law,” said Mr Shapps.
Water and electricity supplies have been cut off, and calls are growing for emergency humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza.
