It is a well-known fact that Al-Jazeera is a propaganda machine against Israel. The Qatari funded broadcaster has long been accused of institutional bias against Israel. But Al-Jazeera’s anti-Israel reputation appears to run even deeper with evidence released by the IDF that shows direct links between Hamas and Al-Jazeera. Earlier this week Israel revealed that six of Al-Jazeera’s Gaza-based journalists were members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad groups, one of whom has been exposed as Hamas’s head of rocket launching. Why then is Al-Jazeera still on the air in the UK?

The IDF has now released further documents captured in Gaza that it said proved direct communication and cooperation between the Qatari network and Hamas, including papers in which the terror group advised the Qatari network not to criticize it, and in which the sides coordinated on concealing incidents of failed rocket launches.

The documents contained personnel spreadsheets, lists of training courses, telephone books and salary documents, and “unequivocally prove” that the journalists were functioning members of the terror groups.

According to the IDF, the first document, which was issued by Hamas in 2022, provided Al-Jazeera with instructions on how to cover up a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch in Jabaliya, in which several civilians were killed. The document instructed Al-Jazeera not to use the word “massacre” to describe the incident, to display minimal images, and to ensure Hamas was not criticized in panel discussions on the channel.

In a second document, also from 2022, Hamas instructed journalist Tamer Almisshall to support the “resistance” in his coverage of Palestinian Islamic Jihad during a 66-hour battle between Israel and the terror group, dubbed Operation Breaking Dawn. The IDF said the document specifically instructed Al-Jazeera not to criticize PIJ’s rocket capabilities or highlight its failed launches.

The military also released what it said was evidence of Hamas’s efforts in 2023 to establish a secure line between the terror group and the network for classified information and emergencies.

“The documents reveal how Hamas directs Al-Jazeera’s media coverage to serve its own interests, preventing the public in Gaza and around the world from discovering the truth about its crimes against Gazan civilians,” the IDF said in a statement.

The documents published by the IDF this week reveal the names Anas al-Sharif, Alaa Salameh, Hossam Shabat, Ashraf al-Sarraj, Ismail Abu Omar and Talal al-Arrouqi.

According to the IDF, al-Sharif has served as head of a rocket launching squad and a member of a Nukhba Force company in Hamas’s Nuseirat Battalion; Salameh as the deputy head of the Shaboura Battalion’s propaganda unit in Islamic Jihad; Shabat as a sniper in Hamas’s Beit Hanoun Battalion; al-Sarraj as a member of Islamic Jihad’s Bureij Battalion; Abu Omar as a training company commander in the East Khan Younis Battalion (and was wounded in an Israeli airstrike several months ago); and al-Arrouqi as a team commander in Hamas’s Nuseirat Battalion.

In 2020, a study led by Yigal Carmon’s research centre included over 700 video clips that showed Al-Jazeera to be a strategic threat to the stability of the Middle East, and in particular, to Western interests, and was accused as being a platform for “global jihad, antisemitism, Holocaust denial, and the naked support of anti-Israel terrorism.”

MEMRI has also tracked and exposed the reporting of Al-Jazeera, reporting that it both endangers IDF forces and celebrates Hamas’s terror attacks.

On October 7, the day of the Hamas massacre, Al-Jazeera presenter Tamer Almisshal celebrated the attacks, writing, “Gaza manufactures victory and honor for its homeland and nation.” Al-Jazeera anchor Ahmad Mansour circulated a video showing Hamas terrorists dragging two Israeli soldiers on the ground and stated: “This historic picture is worth as much as the hundreds of billions of dollars that the world’s Zionists have invested in Israel in the last decades.”

In a post in response to President Joe Biden’s comment that Hamas “does not represent the aspirations of the Palestinian people,” Al-Jazeera presenter Ghada Oueiss wrote, “Seriously? Has brother [Biden] polled our opinion on this?”

Earlier this year, the IDF revealed that an Al-Jazeera journalist and a freelancer killed in an airstrike in Gaza were terror operatives. The following month, it revealed that another journalist with the channel, who was wounded in a separate strike, was a deputy company commander with Hamas.

Al-Jazeera denies the claims.

In April, the Israeli government passed an emergency law to take the network off the air and block its broadcasts for violating national security. Courts have upheld the legislation, citing confidential information.

In June, a court found that there is a direct and causal connection between individuals who have carried out terror attacks inside Israel and the consumption of Al-Jazeera content. It also determined that there was a “close connection” between Al-Jazeera and Hamas, that some Al-Jazeera reporters in Gaza had turned themselves into “assistants and partners” with Hamas, and that some of them had even carried out terror attacks.

Why then is Al-Jazeera still being broadcast in the United Kingdom. Why has its license to broadcast on Freeview, Freesat, Virgin Media and Sky channels not been revoked? This week Al-Jazeera released findings of its investigation into the extent of the UK’s military assistance to Israel, reporting that the UK accounted for nearly half of 16000 reconnaissance missions over the region in a year and was a significant contributor to the weapons air bridge.

Al-Jazeera says it’s this air bridge together with the vast number of surveillance flights and air to air refuelling “that has sustained Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and helped it expand its operations into Southern Lebanon”.

Not only is Al-Jazeera biased against Israel, but it is also biased against the UK. The British government and broadcasting regulators must consider whether a propaganda channel that is against national interests should be aired in UK homes.

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