What was claimed
The BBC has removed Jeremy Bowen from Gaza due to complaints he was “pro-Hamas”.
Our verdict
This is incorrect and a resurgence of a false claim that first surfaced in 2014. Mr Bowen continues to report from the Middle East.
BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen has not been removed from Gaza
18 December 2023
A post on Instagram claims that the BBC’s International Editor Jeremy Bowen has been removed from Gaza after complaints from Israel that he was displaying pro-Hamas bias.
The post features an image of the BBC logo above lines of text which read: “BBC has removed Jeremy Bowen from Gaza, its most experienced Middle East correspondent for saying ‘He had not seen any evidence of Hamas using civilians as human shields.’ Israel complaint [sic] to BBC and said that this was pro-Hamas and BBC immediately pulled him out of Gaza.”
This is not true. Since the start of the most recent conflict, which began in response to an attack by Hamas on Israel on 7 October, Mr Bowen has regularly reported either from around the region or from Jerusalem, though some of his reports have been filed without a geographic location. Mr Bowen has not been based in Gaza but spent a short time there in early November while embedded with Israeli forces, as seen in this report.
Identically worded claims that Mr Bowen had been pulled out of Gaza pre-date the current conflict, having first appeared in mid-2014. The BBC published a blog post dismissing them as false in August that same year.
The part of the claim that quotes Mr Bowen saying he saw no evidence of Hamas using civilians as human shields may have come from a July 2014 article he wrote for the New Statesman, again pre-dating the latest outbreak of hostilities.
The claim began to resurface in the aftermath of the 7 October attack, prompting the BBC News Press Team to release a statement on X (formerly Twitter) on 17 November, which said: “This is complete rubbish (and was rubbish when it last circulated in 2014). Jeremy is currently reporting from London, and will be back in the Middle East soon.”
The following day Mr Bowen posted on his own X account, confirming he was in London but planning to return to Jerusalem.
Misinformation like this can spread quickly online and it’s important to consider whether a post shows what it claims before sharing it online. You can read more about identifying misleading images and videos using our guides here and here.
Image courtesy of Rich Smith
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the BBC has not removed Jeremy Bowen from Gaza and he continues to report on the Israel-Gaza conflict.