Would NBC News profile a physician who said that “Gaza has now poisoned the rest of the world” or “The Muslim lobby in the UK has weaponized civil society?” Undoubtedly, any reporter who did that would immediately be labeled as an Islamophobe and promptly fired.
Why then, did Daniele Hamamdjian and Marc Smith, for NBC News, profile Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah? Known to be fond of terrorist organizations, Abu Sittah has publicly engaged in modernized antisemitic tropes, such as his claim “Israel has now poisoned the rest of the world” and “The Zionist lobby in the UK has weaponized civil society.”
Here’s practising doctor and the Rector of @UofGlasgow rector Ghassan Abu Sittah:
‘Israel has now poisoned the rest of the world. The Zionist lobby in the UK has weaponised civil society. It has managed to weaponise regulatory bodies and turned them into machines of genocidal… pic.twitter.com/2Bc4lMkcoo
— Nicole Lampert (@nicolelampert) February 2, 2026
In Hamamdjian and Smith’s article entitled “For a surgeon treating Lebanon’s wounded children, their horrific injuries bring back memories from Gaza,” NBC News platformed pro-terror, antisemite Abu Sittah as he treated children in a Beirut hospital pediatric ward. The doctor said Beirut reminded him of Gaza, where he volunteered with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) during the Israel-Hamas war. (Of course, no mention was made by Hamamdjian and Smith of MSF’s terror ties.)
Abu Sittah, a London-based doctor, has been used as a pundit by BBC, SkyNews and CNN. CAMERA UK previously wrote about his fondness for terror organizations and how he propagated the Ahli Hospital blood libel, blaming Israel for an explosion caused by an errant rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Defying the spirit of the Hippocratic oath of “do no harm,” Abu Sittah reposted (but later deleted) a social media post urging Palestinian civilians to martyr themselves with “dignity” on Oct. 8, 2023. He has also labeled those Gazans who protested against Hamas in the spring of 2025 as “traitors.”
Still, NBC News allowed Abu Sittah to spew propaganda, including by inflating the number of children killed in Gaza by more than 23%. NBC quoted him as saying, “The sheer number of children killed in Gaza, almost 30,000, has numbed the world and made it used to the concept that children can be killed on such a scale.” The problem with this quote is that the number recited by Abu Sittah is totally false and overestimates the most conservative figure by 23.44%. According to data from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, the number of children in Gaza who died since Oct. 7, ages 0 – 18 (a strict definition of “children” given that many male teenagers younger than 18 were Hamas fighters) is 24,303. For comparison, the number of children in Gaza ages 0 – 15 who died in Gaza since Oct. 7, was less than 20,000.
Neither Hamamdjian nor Smith pushed back on this number. CAMERA contacted NBC News to seek a correction, given that Abu Sittah’s casualty figure was allowed to stand, unchallenged, by two NBC journalists. The news organization did not respond and as of Mar. 18, 2026, has not corrected it.
Journalistic standards require using reliable sources. What is NBC News telling readers when it profiles a pro-terror doctor who spread propaganda and publicly said vile things about Jews and Israel? It is either saying it cannot find doctors without these proclivities to profile or it is purposefully endorsing such views. Neither is a good look.