Shortly after Oct. 7, 2023, Sky News effectively made the decision to frame the war not as an unprovoked antisemitic massacre by a proscribed terrorist group, but primarily on the suffering of Palestinian civilians as the result of the IDF’s putatively “disproportionate” military response to the attacks.
It was also among the outlets which immediately began amplifying unevidenced, incendiary Hamas accusations against Israel, while often showing outright contempt for Israeli denials – a pattern of framing the Jewish state as the uniquely cruel party, rather than the Palestinian pogromists who engaged in mass murder, rape, torture, and mutilation on a scale, and a level of barbarism, not seen since the Holocaust.
Its reporting over the past 27 months has been a form of pro-Palestinian activism, rather than professional journalism – coverage that’s been effectively pro-Hamas.
A five-minute Sky video report (“Investigating the reality of Gaza’s ceasefire”, Dec. 28) by Sky News’ Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir is the second such broadcast we’ve analyzed by the journalist so one-sided and propagandistic as to be indistinguishable from what’s routinely broadcast on Al-Jazeera.
The goal of the Sky journalist was not to provide a fair assessment of the ceasefire, or even to catalogue the alleged violations of the ceasefire by Israel and Hamas, but to advance the libel that Israel has, since the Oct. 10 US-brokered agreement went into effect, been intentionally killing Palestinian civilians – particularly children.
This toxic libel is advanced throughout the broadcast by the journalist herself, as well as by uncritically quoting the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry and Palestinian civilians making such claims – with almost all of the allegations made without providing a response by Israeli officials.
Further, while viewers are told that roughly “400 Palestinians” were killed since the ceasefire went into effect, the Sky journalist fails to provide information on the percentage of these fatalities who were terrorists. Similarly, the broadcast fails to even mention Hamas violations of the ceasefire, and the resulting Israeli fatalities as the result of the terror group’s attacks.
Typical is a several-second, blurry, and unclear video clip from Gaza which includes the sound of shooting shown while the Sky reporter tells viewers that “Israeli soldiers have killed children as young as eight years old.” Yet, it is unclear if the video in question (at 1:45 into the program) depicts the alleged attack which killed the child – an accusation made without any date, location, or any other details about the incident, and without allowing an IDF response to the charge.
Even Israeli efforts to clearly demarcate the Yellow Line (the line separating Israeli and Hamas control of the Strip), so that Gaza’s civilians will know where the line is, are presented as an Israeli land grab – based on the mere fact that some of the yellow barriers erected by the IDF to clarify to civilians where the line is are placed, in certain areas, a bit west of the line.
The Sky report included another unchallenged claim by Maha Hussaini, the Strategy and Media Director (and Board member) of the Hamas-aligned antisemitic group that calls itself EuroMed Human Rights Monitor. (Sky misspelled her name as “Hussein”)
Viewers aren’t given any information about EuroMed’s terror ties, or the extremism of the group. In fact, Hussaini herself posted this on X on Oct. 7, 2023, justifying the terror group’s massacre, using Hamas talking points.
EuroMed, in Dec. 2023, was among the pro-Hamas organizations which promoted the antisemitic allegation that Israel was stealing Palestinian organs in Gaza.
During her brief segment, Hussaini accuses Israel of using the ceasefire to “swallow up” 53% of Gaza’s land – when, in fact, that’s the exact amount of land under IDF control determined by the ceasefire agreement signed by both parties.
Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, the word “Hamas” isn’t mentioned even once by the Sky reporter during the entire segment. Nor is the terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre mentioned, even in the introduction, when viewers are shown the destruction in Gaza as the result of “two years of Israeli strikes.”
While the Doha-based Al Jazeera isn’t taken seriously as a news outlet due to its role as a propaganda organ of the Qatari regime and purveyor of the Muslim Brotherhood’s propaganda agenda, Sky News – owned by the Philadelphia-based Comcast Corporation – is based in the UK and regulated by Ofcom.
Yet, to observe that Sky’s report on the ceasefire fails to abide by Ofcom’s rule that “News…must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality,” nor comports with even the broadest ethical standards within Western journalism, is a profound understatement.
This post originally appeared at CAMERA UK.