Israeli president blasts BBC for comparing hostages to Hamas terrorists

“We are a democracy” – Israel’s president castigates the BBC, accusing the media giant of drawing an “outrageous” false equivalence between Israeli hostages and convicted Hamas terrorists jailed in Israel.

By World Israel News Staff

Israeli President Isaac Herzog appeared on the BBC Sunday morning to sharply criticize the British media giant over its coverage of the ongoing Gaza hostage deal, accusing the broadcaster of equating Israeli captives with Palestinian terrorists jailed in Israel.

In an interview on the BBC‘s “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg,” Herzog said the outlet falsely suggested Israel mistreated convicted terrorists, drawing a false equivalence between the terrorists freed by Israel during the ceasefire with the Israeli hostages released by the Islamic terror group.

“I absolutely reject that, and I think that this equality that the BBC is always trying to make is outrageous and preposterous, absolutely not true,” Herzog said.

“We are a democracy. We abide by the rule of law. All prisoners in Israel get whatever is necessary as prisoners under the law, under the supervision of the court. Even a Supreme Court justice recently visited the prisons.

“And not only that, some of the prisoners, the Palestinians, didn’t want to leave. They didn’t want to go back to Gaza. They preferred staying in the Israeli prisons.

“So, of course, there’s always this notion by the BBC, which is really outrageous in my mind, and I call upon all of you to stop that attitude and understand that this attack on October 7 was an attack on the entire free world, and what we are doing when we are catching terrorists who carried out these atrocities — we are simply preventing them from taking on further attacks against humanity at large,” Herzog added.

Herzog also highlighted the conditions under which the 76 remaining hostages are being held in the Gaza Strip, citing reports of them being kept in underground tunnels for months, deprived of adequate food and medical care, and suffering severe physical and emotional trauma.

“They were kept in tunnels throughout that period. They had no contact with the outside world. They hardly ate,” he said. “They became totally emaciated, and they have suffered a huge amount of bruises, pains, and wounds, and of course, we haven’t discussed the mental situation, but we are all shocked and horrified as we saw them emerging out of those terrible captivity tunnels of the brutal terrorists of Hamas.”

Asked to respond to President Donald Trump’s recently unveiled Gaza plan, Herzog avoided directly commenting on the proposal, saying only that he supported “new ideas.”

“I would say that President Trump basically came forward and said something which I read as follows: Going back to the same routine of getting to a ceasefire – an arrangement and then Hamas attacks you, and then we go to war, and then terrible things happen – cannot go on.

We have to look for new ideas. And I believe that after he met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, now President Trump will meet with President El-Sisi of Egypt, with King Abdullah of Jordan,” he continued.

“I’m sure that they will have to express their views on the issue, and of course, they are our partners in peace processes, including the Abraham Accords partners. We’ll hear all of them, and we’ll have to find a right way to make sure that what happened will not recur again, meaning that Hamas cannot rule Gaza anymore.”