Definition of ‘hostage’ is ‘subjective’, says press regulator - The Jewish Chronicle

Describing Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel as “hostages” is not a breach of the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s (Ipso) accuracy clause, the UK press regulator has said.

A complaint was sent to IPSO after a Scottish daily newspaper, The National, owned by Newsquest, published an article on February 15, 2025, headlined: “Hundreds of Palestinian hostages released by Israel.”

From its headline, the story seemed to refer to the release of 369 Palestinian prisoners that Saturday in exchange for the return of three Israeli hostages: Alexander Troufanov, 29, Yair Horn, 46, and Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36.

The exchange occurred during the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, which came into effect on January 19, although fighting resumed on March 18.

Writing to Ipso, the UK co-editor of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), Adam Levick, filed a complaint about the headline.

He said that the description of Palestinian prisoners released from Israeli prisons as “hostages” was a “gross misrepresentation” and breached the accuracy clause – the first clause out of 16 – in the Editors’ Code of Practice.

After reviewing the complaint, Ipso wrote back to Levick to say that the Complaints Team decided the headline did “not raise a possible breach of the Editors’ Code”.

After Levick appealed the decision, Ipso’s Complaints Committee declined to re-open the complaint following a review.

In Levick’s complaint, he said the headline was inaccurate because “it puts on equal moral footing” Israeli civilians kidnapped during Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, and Palestinian prisoners, “most of whom were members of a proscribed terrorist group and were convicted of violent offences”.

But Ipso, in its response to Levick, contested this characterisation of the Palestinian prisoners, citing a BBC article from February 15, 2025, which reported that out of the 369 Palestinians released that day, 36 of them had been serving life sentences, and 333 were detained without charge since the October 7 attacks.

Given this, “it was not significantly inaccurate to refer to 333 of the Palestinians released on 15 February as ‘hostages’,” Ipso said, concluding: “We did not find sufficient evidence to investigate a possible breach of Clause 1.”

The first paragraph of the Scottish newspaper’s article only refers to 333 Palestinians who were freed, as opposed to the full 369.

Explaining its decision to not uphold the complaint, the press regulator said that “this is a highly contentious issue” and described the term “hostage” as “somewhat subjective”.

In his response, requesting a review of the Ipso’s decision, Levick said that the Palestinian detainees are being held via an Israeli legal practice known as “administrative detention”, where a person is held without trial, without having committed an offence, on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future.

Levick added that it is a practice used by both the UK and the US in the post-9/11 years.

“It's impossible to imagine a British media outlet describing such detainees as ‘hostages’,” he said.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a hostage is defined as: “Someone who is taken as a prisoner by an enemy in order to force the other people involved to do what the enemy wants.”

In early February, the BBC was forced to make an on-air correction after referring to released Palestinian convicts as “hostages”.

Israeli hostages Eli Sharabi, 52, Ohad Ben Ami, 56, and Or Levy, 34, were released from Hamas captivity on February 8, 2025, while Israel freed 183 Palestinian detainees.

During a broadcast, the BBC News used a strapline across the bottom of the screen that said there were “concerns about the condition of hostages on both sides”. The BBC admitted the strapline was “incorrectly worded” and went on to correct it.

The National and Ipso were contacted for comment.

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