A Guardian journalist is facing backlash after appearing to defend Hamas and question the terror group’s war crimes.
Owen Jones discussed the Hamas-Israel war in a video shown on TalkTV on Friday, December 1 where he made bold claims that there was “no evidence” of Hamas’s war crimes.
He said: “If there was torture, there’s no evidence given for it on camera. Now if there was rape and sexual violence committed, we don’t see this on the footage either.
“Now, warning here for deeply distressing description, a clip of an Israeli woman inspecting a badly burned woman’s corpse to see if she was a relative. She had no underwear. This is being offered as evidence of rape.”
Mr Jones goes on to say: “But, that’s not what you would consider conclusive evidence. We don’t see children being killed.”
As he tries to continue, the panel appear to have had enough, with them branding his comments “horrific” and presenter Laura Dodsworth calling his comments “very upsetting”.
She said: “I was at the same screen. I sat behind him. Now, for me, this is incredible that someone could watch that film and that their takeaway is they didn’t see evidence of rape. There were multiple women who were dead with deep green bruises and that particular woman he’s talking about, he’s talking about a woman who is naked on the lower body, she’s dead she’s burned and she’s contorted like a mannequin.
“And his takeaway is, ‘we don’t have evidence she was raped’.” Mike Graham then calls Mr Owen’s comments “bizarre”.
Political commentator Lee Harris wrote on social media platform X: “I struggle to find the words to describe how disgusted I am with this vile Owen Jones video. He should be ashamed of himself. Utterly horrific.”
Broadcaster Andrew Neil also slammed Owen Jones, calling him a “hard left poster boy” in his opinion piece for the Daily Mail.
He wrote: “While accepting — several times — that Hamas did indeed commit war crimes on that terrible first Saturday of October, Jones nevertheless proceeds to nitpick, undermine, question and sow seeds of suspicion about the veracity of parts of the video.
“It is a worrying, disturbing, chilling, often irrational performance which descends into incoherence as it reaches its weary end.”
The video watched by numerous journalists was put together by the Israel Defence Force (IDF) from Hamas’s own bodycam footage, as well as dashboard and mobile phone footage.
In the video, Hamas is said to have “proudly recorded their atrocities”, filming numerous dead bodies after they slaughtered at least 846 Israeli civilians.
The surprise attack on October 7 has been widely condemned as a terrorist attack.
Mr Jones posted a 25-minute long video on YouTube where he questioned Hamas’s war crimes and cited a “lack of evidence” once again.
He also called the video “propaganda”.
