Anas al-Sharif was killed in an IDF strike in Gaza City last August while working as a journalist and videographer for Qatar state broadcaster Al Jazeera Arabic. Before the current war, however, he worked for Hamas’s media team in Gaza.
That key detail was treated differently across the BBC’s main English news website and its Arabic-language service.
In English, the BBC stated that al-Sharif had previously worked for Hamas. In Arabic, the corporation instead presented this as an Israeli allegation which had been “strongly denied” by Al Jazeera.
The BBC Arabic report said that an IDF spokesman Avichay Adaree had previously claimed al-Sharif had a “connection with the Hamas movement”. It stated that “In July 2025, Adaree said that al-Sharif ‘is one of six journalists in Aljazeera who belong to Hamas or PIJ’”.
The Arabic-language article emphasised that Al Jazeera had “strongly denied” the allegations.
The BBC Arabic story asked "Who protects journalists working in Gaza?"[Missing Credit]
But more than 21 hours before the Arabic-language article was published, the English-language BBC website had updated a live page with verified information that al-Sharif had indeed belonged to Hamas.
The headline stated: “BBC understands Sharif worked for a Hamas media team in Gaza before current conflict.”
The accompanying article, written by BBC correspondent Jon Donnison, stated: “Anas al-Sharif, who has been a familiar face on Al Jazeera for much of the war, worked for a Hamas media team in Gaza before the current conflict, the BBC understands. Israel says he was ‘the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas’ but has produced little evidence to support that. There will be questions about Israel’s justification for killing Sharif if he played a relatively minor non-combat role with Hamas several years ago.”
The discrepancy between the two reports was raised with the BBC by media watchdog the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera).
Camera submitted a formal complaint and asked that Donnison’s findings be included in the Arabic report alongside what it had already published about Israel’s allegations and Al Jazeera’s denial. The request was not accepted and the BBC repeatedly defended its approach.
An update on the BBC's English language coverage of al-Sharif's killing stated he had previously been part of Hamas[Missing Credit]
The corporation said the purpose of the Arabic report was not the “specific circumstances” of al-Sharif’s killing, “but rather to use the incident as a prompt for discussion about the wider safety of journalists working in Gaza”.
The BBC added that “prior professional or political affiliations do not necessarily disqualify an individual from being recognised as a journalist”.
The corporation insisted that the BBC Arabic article was “proportionate, accurate, and consistent with editorial standards”.
Following the rejection of its complaint, Camera escalated the case to the BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit (ECU), the highest authority for World Service complaints.
A two-page ECU response to Camera’s complaint again defended the editorial process behind the two different treatments of the story.
The letter stated that “the test of output is what is broadcast and published, not a comparison of material.”
It went on to claim "the extent to which this information bears on the accuracy of this article seems limited given it was stressed in the Jon Donnison report any work he had done for Hamas was before the current conflict, that he had recently been vocally criticising Hamas and that Israel had produced little evidence to show he was, as claimed, currently the leader of a terrorist cell.”
The response suggested that the quoting of an Israeli army source accusing al-Sharif of “leading a Hamas cell” was “sufficient to ensure readers understood Israel’s charges against al-Sharif.”
Concluding that its findings were final – as the World Service is not regulated by Ofcom – the ECU asserted that “a personally held view on the significance of specific information to a story does not itself amount to an undisputed fact.”
This is the latest allegation of double standards levelled at the BBC’s Arabic-language service following the leaked Michael Prescott memo, which highlighted numerous incidents of the channel giving extensive space to denials by Hamas or Hezbollah.
Criticising the BBC's response to its complaint, a spokesperson for Camera told the JC: “The fact that Anas al-Sharif worked for a terrorist organisation – regardless of the nature or duration of that role – is plainly relevant to any discussion of his death framed in terms of ‘safety,’ ‘protection,’ or ‘danger.’
“Had BBC Arabic genuinely sought to foster an informed discussion about these issues, it would not have omitted a fact independently established by the BBC itself in its English-language reporting.
“Instead, the BBC once again invoked ‘editorial focus’ to justify its Arabic branch's editors from reporting facts deemed inconvenient for their perceived audience – despite publishing the same facts in English.
“The decision to reclassify Sharif’s Hamas role as a mere ‘prior professional or political affiliation,’ and the ECU’s claim that acknowledging it would undermine ‘fundamental democratic principles,’ only underscores the need for serious reform of BBC Arabic and of the complaints process meant to hold it accountable,” Camera said.
When approached by the JC, a BBC spokesperson said it had nothing further to add to the ECU response.
