On the year anniversary of 7 October, BBC put out a Panorama episode to mark it, talking to four families in Israel and Gaza.
One of these was Israeli Thomas Hand, whose daughter Hamas held captive for fifty days in Gaza. However, the BBC conveniently omitted something notable about Hand. Specifically, the Zionist resident from Kibbutz Be’eri on the border, had previously given a chilling interview to Israeli state broadcaster Kan.
And in this, he revealed how in his zeal for the destruction of Hamas, he would have been willing to sacrifice his nine-year-old daughter.
In other words, the BBC whitewashed the part where Hand is a raging genocidal Zionist – who’d go to any length to eradicate Hamas.
BBC Panorama omitting information on Israeli interviewee
BBC Panorama aired on the one year anniversary of 7 October. The broadcaster’s description of the episode is already dripping in bias. It read:
When Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October 2023, it led to a war that threatens to engulf the entire region 12 months later. Jane Corbin has been following four families, two in Israel and two in Gaza, whose lives have been changed forever by the conflict.
Tens of thousands of Gazans are reported to have been killed and much of the territory has been reduced to rubble. With many Israeli hostages having died in captivity, dozens more still being held by Hamas and violence now spreading to Lebanon, a deal to bring peace looks as far away as ever.
Obviously, it’s hard to know where to begin with this. For one, the BBC is both-siding the violence through false equivalence. In other words, it’s giving equal weight to Israeli and Gazan voices – when Israel has murdered over 40,000 Palestinians in its genocidal assault on the strip. The BBC should be giving Gazans still in the grip of Israel’s genocide a bigger platform all round.
Of course, the BBC would not do this – after all, it’s still framing Israel’s genocide and annexation of Gaza as a ‘conflict’ between two sides at war. The Canary doesn’t need to tell you why this is clearly not the case.
Again, it liberally applies passive voice to avoid pointing the finger at the perpetrator. To add insult to injury, it doesn’t even name Israel in connection to the “tens of thousands of Gazans reported to have been killed”. Nor does it acknowledge Israel as the culprits of murderous terrorism in Lebanon.
None of this is remotely surprising from the blatantly Israel-biased BBC that masquerades as impartial, but has repeatedly shown it’s anything but. Just add it to the pile of steaming shit propaganda the broadcaster has passed off as news since Israel began its brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing. Not that it is anything new – it has been doing this long before 7 October – much as Israel’s apartheid occupation and violence against Palestinians extends back many decades.
No mention of the Hannibal Directive
While the programme does acknowledge how Israel killed its own civilians in friendly fire on 7 October, it doesn’t explain to what extent this was the case.
Specifically, it mentioned how Israel killed 14 of its own people on the day.
One viewer noted on X that the Panorama reaffirmed the previous reports that the IDF helicopters shot at Israeli civilians:
Some of the ‘victims’ just admitted on this BBC Panorama documentary that Israeli Apache helicopters were firing anyone and everyone from above. #Panorama
— Zēė 🇵🇸🔻 (@zeegunner1) October 7, 2024
However, as the Canary’s Ed Sykes detailed, Israel forces likely killed many more of the people it later reported in the death toll. Predictably, the BBC made no mention of Israel’s ‘Hannibal Directive’ either. This directs forces to murder Israeli soldiers, rather than let them be taken captive.
Daughters death a ‘price’ Zionist father willing to pay
So, it was amidst all this that the BBC interviewed two Gazan, and two Israeli families. Hamas took Thomas Hand’s nine-year-old daughter Emily captive and held her for 50 days. It released Emily in a hostage exchange. BBC Panorama presenter Jane Corbin said this was “the day after a ceasefire”. In reality, this was just a four-day pause in Israel’s brutal bombardment, back in November 2023.
Hand described the moment his daughter returned:
I can’t remember what I said. I honestly don’t know what was said. Just too overjoyed.
However, a few months later, Hand was on Israeli state media channel Kan talking about her captivity. On this he said how he would have been prepared to sacrifice her, if it meant ending Hamas. As Electronic Intifada reported in May:
As she watched on, her father told Israeli interviewer Tali Moreno he had been willing to sacrifice her, in order to further Israel’s genocidal war effort against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Speaking of her short time in Palestinian captivity, he said that the Israeli military “had to do everything in its powers to destroy Hamas,” even if that meant killing his own daughter.
“I realized that she could be bombed, could be shot by friendly fire,” he said. And yet: “That was a price that in my head, I could say: ‘Yeah okay.’ So long as we destroy Hamas.”
The outlet explained how this is part of a broader Zionist phenomenon whereby:
Many Israelis seem willing to sacrifice their own civilians on the altar of Zionism – and sometimes even themselves too.
Naturally, the BBC Panorama didn’t bring up this interview with Hand. To do so would have illustrated the zeal for the Zionist occupation in Palestine. It would have shown how this has fueled Israel’s dehumanisation of Palestinians more broadly. Moreover, it would demonstrate how this has driven the resulting ongoing genocide it is still committing nearly a year on.
Thinly veiled genocide-mongering
Of course, the BBC couldn’t entirely conceal the Zionist’s thinly veiled genocide-mongering vitriol either. Hand told Corbin that:
I keep going back to the 6th – when we were living as neighbours. But on the 7th, they ruined whatever future they had. They’ve ruined the future of what we’ve had.
Gazans have “ruined whatever future they had” – a Freudian slip? Obviously, he doesn’t outright express his support for Israel’s genocide, but the meaning is pretty clear. He doesn’t see a future for the people of Gaza as his neighbours – in other words, it suggests he absolutely supports ethnically cleansing the strip.
In another moment, Hand later said:
We can’t let Hamas just rebuild again. They’ll do the same thing – they promised they will do it again and again and again – come to our communities and kill us. We can’t let that happen again.
The BBC cut off his interview there, leaving viewers to only surmise what this could mean. We already know Hand would put up his daughter’s life if it meant destroying Hamas. His vehemence for them is apparent. Does he support the murder of over 40,000 Palestinians? That seems likely.
In June, Hand criticised Ireland, where he is a dual citizen, for recognising the Palestinian statehood. He argued this was ‘rewarding’ Palestine after Hamas’s attacks. However, Ireland emphasised how it did so as a step towards a peaceful resolution.
And notably, in response, Hand said that:
We’re praying for it to happen and for all of this to end. All they (Hamas) have to do is hand over the hostages, and the war is over.
In other words, Hand is wholly behind Israel’s continued genocide in Gaza until Hamas hands over the remaining hostages.
BBC Panorama: thinly-veiled propaganda
In the BBC programme, Hand also left out the part where it was IDF bombs that put his daughter’s life at risk, saying:
They were moved from house to house, above ground, presumably one step ahead of the IDF, going South. There was about three or four houses, continually moving, under heavy fire. A bomb fell so close that they were sprayed with the window – the window shattered and covered them in glass.
Clearly, the BBC has no qualms platforming Israeli supporters of genocide. Giving a voice to genocidal Zionists is nothing out of character for the BBC though. This was just one more instance of the public broadcaster omitting key facts that would further dent Israel’s victim narrative.
Despite Israel’s litany of abhorrent war crimes, illegal occupation, invasions, and a literal genocide that has wiped whole Palestinian families off the map, forever, it put a Zionist citizen apologist front and centre, and left out the part where he’d sacrifice his own daughter to put an end to Hamas. For those at the back, (the BBC, evidently) Israel isn’t interested in negotiating an end to this – it won’t be content until it wipes Gaza – and Palestine – off the map.
Feature image via BBC Panorama/ the Canary
