October 21st 2023.
Sky News has recently come under fire after Kay Burley, one of their journalists, misrepresented comments made by the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, on the Breakfast With Kay Burley show. She had asked, ‘Will the shadow foreign secretary [David Lammy] sit with the Palestinian ambassador, appearing with him, at an event, given that the Palestinian ambassador basically said, the last couple of days, that “Israel had it coming”?’
However, in a previous interview, Mr Zomlot had not made the comments that Burley attributed to him. Rather, he had said ‘Israel knew that this was coming their way’ after ‘so many years of the warnings we have been saying that this was coming’.
As a result, Sky News have now issued an apology, with Anna Jones carrying out the announcement. She said: ‘We recognise that this is not what Dr Zomlot had said in an earlier interview. Sky News also accepts that this gave a potentially misleading representation of Dr Zomlot’s views.’
The Israel-Hamas conflict began 15 days ago when Hamas terrorists took dozens of hostages and attacked a music festival and kibbutz communities in southern Israel. In response, Israel launched air strikes on Gaza and cut off fuel, water, food and medical supplies from entering the cramped territory.
Husam Zomlot had condemned the killing of civilians by Hamas, but said Israel was seeking ‘sheer vengeance’ in its retaliation. In his interview with CNN on October 7, he had said: ‘The loss of civilian life is tragic… [on] all sides and what is happening is extremely worrying and very tragic. As we speak, the loss of [lives], you’ve counted 70 Israeli deaths, there [are] more than 200 Palestinian deaths so far, more than 1,600 entire residential compounds are being wiped out. This is a war crime committed by Israel.’
Mr Zomlot went on to say: ‘And what is more tragic or equally tragic is the blindness and the deafness of the world and the international community for so many years of the warnings we have been saying that this was coming. Israel knew that this was coming their way.’
Sky News has now apologised for potentially giving a misleading representation of a guest’s views. It remains to be seen how this conflict will end, but it is clear that both sides have suffered heavy casualties over the past two weeks.
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