Families and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, gather to demand a deal that will bring back all the hostages held in Gaza, outside a meeting between hostage representatives and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Jerusalem, January 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ammar Awad

News coverage is often described as “the first draft of history.” And in the case of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal, nothing is more true.

As media outlets rushed to summarize the conflict — some successfully and some appallingly — Reuters excelled in the latter category.

The news agency used the Gaza ceasefire deal as an excuse to reframe the entire narrative of the Israel-Hamas war in a way that subtly justified the existence and actions of Hamas — an internationally-designated terror group.

Reuters’ goal was achieved by using biased terminology and one-sided background paragraphs.

And it should come as no surprise given the agency’s Gaza reporters have been exposed by HonestReporting for their cozy relations with Hamas.

Biased Terminology

First, Reuters used the word “detainees” to describe the Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been jailed for years over terror offenses and violence:

It’s time @Reuters looked up the dictionary definition of a “detainee.”

These “Palestinian detainees” are not being held by Israel for political reasons — they are imprisoned for terrorist offenses and acts of violence. pic.twitter.com/IwyFv5eVUO

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 15, 2025

Such wording whitewashes the perpetrators of horrific murders and minimizes their crimes. And the fact that this wording is usually used to describe political detainees further contributes to this distortion.

The word “detainees” also hides the fact that, under Israeli law, they are still guaranteed conditions that do not harm their health or dignity — rights that hostages in Hamas captivity have been deprived of.

But that’s only one strategy used by Reuters to subtly shill for terrorists.

One-Sided Information

The second strategy is the sneaky one-sided editing of background paragraphs or sentences, usually referred to as “boilerplates.”

These have an almost “holy” status in news agency reporting on contested issues. They set the narrative and therefore need to be carefully phrased to include the most balanced background information from all sides.

Yet Reuters’ initial story on the Gaza ceasefire deal included the following summary of the war, which clearly didn’t take into account the Israeli victims:

Palestinians are not the only side to have suffered during the past 15 months of this conflict.

The Israeli victims of a war started by Hamas evidently don’t count for @Reuters. pic.twitter.com/7XibRvyy0B

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) January 15, 2025

Even more disturbing is the fact that an editor apparently noticed the flaw, because the phrasing was later changed to: “15 months of bloodshed that devastated the Palestinian enclave” instead of “15 months of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.” But it still sounds like some lives are more equal than others to Reuters.

Another example is the biased editing of a background paragraph that set the narrative about what triggered the war — the October 7 massacre.

What has always been described as a breach of the Israel-Gaza border was subtly changed to the breaking of “security barriers,” and the word “border” was removed — creating the impression that the terrorists may have acted legitimately.

This was done in a story about Gaza celebrations by the agency’s veteran Gaza reporter, Nidal al-Mughrabi (who is currently based in Cairo).

But the main Reuters report about the ceasefire agreement, by additional non-Gazan reporters and a larger crew of editors, includes a more accurate boilerplate, with the words “border-area communities”:

This appears to prove the bias of the reporter/editor who quietly deleted the word “border” in the first case. But the paragraph in its entirety is still flawed because it leads with Israel’s “invasion” and not with Hamas atrocities, and also makes the 1,200 victims of October 7 look like they were mostly soldiers.

Cozy with Hamas

Sadly, all of this makes sense because prominent Reuters staffers in Gaza, including al-Mughrabi, have had unethical ties with Hamas for quite some time. So they would not want to publish anything that might risk this relationship.

But these tainted ties, exposed by HonestReporting last September, ring louder now: Our exposure unveiled how al-Mughrabi and his colleagues attended a Hamas event for journalists in 2017, where awards were given by none other than Khalil Al-Hayya — current Hamas leader who promised another October 7 after the ceasefire deal was signed:

Reuters’ Nidal al-Mughrabi (circled) sitting with colleagues behind Hamas’ Khalil Al-Hayya, at a 2017 Hamas event in Gaza.

Reuters’ Mohammed Jadallah Salem receiving an award from Hamas’ Khalil Al-Hayya, at a 2017 Hamas event in Gaza.

In other words, Reuters’ reframing of the narrative cannot be fixed without some serious reshuffling of their compromised Gaza team.

But that won’t happen if the agency wants access to figures like Al-Hayya.

Thus, a vicious circle is created– from the tainted Gaza team to newsroom editors who defer to a distorted narrative that excuses the terrorists out of fear or bias.

The misleading terminology and one-sidedness, particularly in huge stories like the Gaza ceasefire deal, are the subtle tools by which this circle is kept intact so that the first draft of history serves the “right” side.

HonestReporting is a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.