The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) has been a staunch anti-Israel apologist for hamas-led Gaza.
So it is a major, unexpected, and pleasant surprise to see that, this once, they are reporting what is actually happening there.
From Tol Staff’s article for the Times Of Israel, via msn.com:
Hamas using secret cash stockpile, looted aid to pay employees and loyalists — BBC
Hamas is using secretive methods to pay salaries to its tens of thousands of members, the BBC reported Wednesday, in a report that also supported Israel’s contention that the terror group has systematically commandeered humanitarian aid entering the Strip and is handing it out to loyalists while other Gazans go hungry.
The British broadcaster said it spoke to three Hamas employees who each reported they received some NIS 1,000 ($300) within the last week. At the same time, the report noted that those on the payroll are getting a fraction of their prewar salaries— at most 20% of the previous sum every 10 weeks.
According to the report, throughout the war, Hamas has continued paying wages to some 30,000 people described as “civil servants.”
A senior Hamas official was quoted as saying the terror group stockpiled some $700 million in cash in underground tunnels before launching its October 7, 2023, onslaught in southern Israel.
Noting that Israel has targeted Hamas salary distributors in order to disrupt payments, the report said operatives receive encrypted messages on their phones, inviting them for “tea” at a certain time and place. At the meeting, a contact walks by and discreetly hands them an envelope with cash before walking away.
The BBC also reported that Hamas has been taxing traders and selling cigarette packs for up to 100 times their prewar price to generate revenue.
It cited unnamed Gazan sources as confirming Israel’s longtime claim that significant portions of the humanitarian aid entering Gaza were diverted by the terror group and sold on the black market for inflated prices or handed to loyalists.
Is what you just read a surprise? Not if you have any serious understanding of what hamas is, how completely it hates Israel and Jews in general (not just in Israel, but everywhere worldwide), and how little it is concerned about the safety and well-being of its own people, whom it unhesitatingly uses as human shields.
But it is a major surprise that, assuming this article is accurate, the BBC is actually reporting these facts, instead of finding some way, however ridiculous/preposterous, of blaming Israel for hamas’ transgressions.
I will end by offering my congratulations to the BBC. May this unexpected presentation of reality not be just a one-off, but the start of its accurate reporting about what happens in Gaza.
