Saudi news channel Al Arabiya labelled a 'partner' in Gaza genocide over alleged pro-Israel bias

Palestinians have been angered by the coverage of a recent Israeli massacre in Gaza's Al-Mawasi camp by Saudi-owned news channel Al Arabiya, as well as its general coverage of the war which many believe is biased toward Israel.

On Saturday, a series of Israeli strikes killed at least 90 people in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, which it has previously designated a “safe zone" for Palestinian civilians.

The vast majority of those killed are believed to be civilians, with women and children among the dead. Israeli forces even attacked medical teams arriving to help save victims of the strikes.

However, Israel claimed that the attacks were part of an operation targeting “senior Hamas commanders”, including Mohammed Deif, the leader of Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, and Rafa Salama, the alleged commander of the Khan Younis Brigade.

Hamas claimed that Israel’s claims about targeting its commanders were “false” and merely a justification to “cover up the scale of the massacre”.

According to angry viewers, Al Arabiya only reported the Israeli side of events, failing to mention Hamas’s rebuttals and completely ignoring the eyewitness testimonies, videos, and reports of the attacks.

Using the hashtag #AlArabiya_Partner_in_Genocide, hundreds took to X to say the channel was ignoring the massive civilian death toll, the Israeli targeting of medical workers, and alleged bias in the channel’s headlines covering the massacre.

The outraged social media users claimed that all the news headlines published by Al Arabiya about the massacre on its website did not mention the Palestinian death toll, but instead focused on operational details announced by the Israeli army and government, focusing on Mohammed Deif as the "target".

The channel also allegedly only covered Israel’s statements on the attack and initially did not broadcast or publish Hamas’s rebuttals, let alone the testimonies of Palestinians affected by the attack.

Al Arabiya has come under fire for its perceived pro-Israel bias in November, when the channel was praised by right-wing Israeli media outlets for its coverage of the war on Gaza.

In May of this year, presenter Rasha Nabil was criticised during an interview with a Hamas member for what seemed to be her attempts to justify Israel’s attack on Rafah, something that even Israel’s primary ally, the US, was opposed to at the time.

The channel is generally seen as giving Israeli officials easy interviews while being much more combative with Hamas representatives. This Saudi government has been viewed as increasingly anti-Hamas, due to the group's alleged links with the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran, as well as Turkey and Qatar. 

The recent backlash to its coverage of the Mawasi massacre has led to calls for a boycott of the channel.