Gaza-based journalists who worked amid what photojournalist Motaz Azaiza has described as a “Hamas-controlled media environment” were given prominent platforms in Westminster, researcher Emma Schubart of the Henry Jackson Society (HJS) revealed to The Jerusalem Post exclusively on Tuesday.
Schubart’s discovery follows comments made by Gazan photojournalist Motaz Azaiza in a September 3 podcast interview with journalist Ahmed Biqui.
During this conversation, Azaiza mentioned the existence of a Hamas-administered WhatsApp group called Smart, which, he said, included “every journalist working in Gaza.” The group’s icon displayed a Hamas flag and was administered by “the director of media for the Rafah Border Crossing,” who has been identified as Wael Abu Mohsen.
According to Azaiza, the group coordinated media messaging and organized campaigns against journalists whose reporting departed from the sanctioned line.
“It was never a spontaneous thing,” he added.
Gazan photographers 'accustomed to lowering cameras' to criticism of Hamas
Azaiza added that photographers in Gaza had “become accustomed to lowering their cameras” when civilians criticized Hamas.
HJS reported that several journalists who operated within this Hamas-controlled media environment were subsequently welcomed into Westminster and presented to British parliamentarians as authoritative witnesses to the war. Other journalists from this environment have been involved more indirectly with the British government.
For example, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh was hosted in Parliament in September last year.
MPs host Hamas-linked journalists
Hansard [the official report of all Parliamentary debates] records Labour MP Yuan Yang saying on September 10, 2025, that she had “co-hosted an event in Parliament for Wael al-Dahdouh” the previous evening.
During that visit, Dahdouh also met with Labour MP Afzal Khan for Manchester Rusholem (formerly Manchester Gorton), who posted publicly that he had met Dahdouh, calling the meeting “an honor.”
While neither the Post nor HJS has independently verified the membership of the group, Azaiza said it included every journalist working in Gaza at the time.
Then there is Azaiza himself, who on May 15, 2024, addressed a Nakba Day gathering at Westminster Central Hall, yards from Parliament, sharing the event with Sir Alan Duncan, the former Conservative Foreign Office minister.
Additionally, Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Brendan O’Hara co-organized a cross-party panel in a House of Commons committee room in mid-July 2025 with Oxfam GB and the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
Gaza journalist Abubaker Abed spoke alongside Oxfam’s then-CEO. Abed addressed MPs and journalists who were in attendance on conditions in Gaza and called for an end to UK arms support for Israel.
Finally, Al Jazeera and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) held a sold-out Westminster screening of the documentary Gaza in October 2024, followed by a panel. Al Jazeera Gaza correspondent Youmna El Sayed appeared as a panellist, with MPs and peers attending.
“One of Gaza’s most famous ‘journalists’ has described, in his own words, how Hamas controlled the media environment,” Schubart said.
Schubart noted that this is of great importance to every international outlet that has relied on Gaza-based journalists yet still claims that their reporting is editorially independent of Hamas.
“The question is straightforward: Why were British politicians giving a parliamentary platform to journalism produced under Hamas control?”
Schubart has personally written to the Speaker of the House on these findings. The letter was viewed by the Post.