House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast asked why a U.S.-funded outlet is ‘ignoring the absolute depravity that Hamas put on display.’
A Voice of America story covering Hamas’s handover of the remains of Israeli hostages, including the bodies of two children, on Thursday neglected to reflect the jubilant attitude of Palestinian spectators who fêted the terrorist group at a grotesque ceremony.
The piece drew searing criticism from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast and an employee of the U.S.-funded media outlet’s parent agency — which comes at a delicate time for VOA, as senior Trump administration officials float the possibility of shuttering the broadcaster.
During the ceremony, Gaza residents cheered as masked Hamas members paraded the coffins around a small marching ground and displayed them on a stage set up with a propaganda banner, before handing them to the International Committee for the Red Cross. The coffins held the bodies of the Bibas boys, Ariel and Kfir, an unidentified Palestinian woman whom Hamas attempted to pass off as the boys’ mother, Shiri, and Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 years old when abducted alive and was murdered in captivity.
The VOA article in question had characterized the terrorist group as a “militant group,” unquestioningly parroted Hamas’s claim that the three Bibas hostages died in an Israeli air strike, and declined to mention that crowds of Palestinian civilians cheered at the Hamas event — which has been widely described as a propaganda rally.
It cited a statement issued by a U.N. official who reminded Hamas of its international legal obligations to respect the remains of the deceased and, in the second-to-last paragraph of the piece, referred to the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist group.
A VOA spokesperson defended the story but also said that the outlet would review the criticism: “Hamas is a terrorist organization, a point that was clearly communicated in the story. We take concerns from members of Congress very seriously, and will take a hard look at any criticism of any story. We are committed to accuracy and balance.”
The piece appeared to comport with the principles described in controversial internal guidance that VOA managers delivered to staff soon after the October 7 terrorist attack. That policy directed journalists not to refer to Hamas members as “terrorists,” except in quotes, though it said that they could refer to the designation of Hamas as a terrorist group by the U.S. and other countries.
This prompted congressional backlash, including a push to cut the outlet’s budget. The Biden-era executive team backed down and said that the policy was mistaken, though VOA staff have rarely used the term “terrorist” to refer to individual Hamas members since then.
A shocked employee of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) — a government office that oversees VOA — told National Review: “How could VOA sanitize the parading of Israeli hostage children’s coffins before throngs of cheering Palestinians, including children?”
The employee added, “It’s appalling that VOA chose to ignore and gloss over the shocking nature of the Hamas propaganda event that elicited global outrage.”
In a statement, Mast also questioned VOA’s editorial choices: “Why is Voice of America, a U.S.-funded outlet, ignoring the absolute depravity that Hamas put on display for the whole world?”
Mast went on: “Let’s get the facts straight: Hamas paraded the dead bodies of innocent Israelis, including two children, in front of cheering crowds. American taxpayers should not be paying the salaries of Hamas apologists who spout terrorist propaganda.”
The initial version was published Thursday morning, after the Hamas parade but before the Israeli government announced that Shiri Bibas’s body was not in the coffin and that the Bibas boys had been murdered by Hamas.
After National Review requested comment on Thursday afternoon, VOA updated its article, though it did not include mention of the cheering crowds or adjust its description of Hamas as a “militant group” in the first paragraph of the article.
It published a second update at 9:36 p.m., not mentioning the Israeli finding about the murder of the Bibas children.
VOA and other U.S.-funded outlets have historically been viewed as important, if deeply flawed, tools of American foreign policy that have delivered information to people living under the rule of anti-U.S. dictatorships. But they have also drawn ire from both political parties for a series of high-profile management lapses, potentially jeopardizing their existence in the DOGE era.
President Trump has named Kari Lake as his designate to run VOA and Brent Bozell III as his pick for the CEO of USAGM, with both promising to bring sweeping change to U.S.-backed international broadcasters. But the future of these entities is uncertain, as senior Trump administration officials Elon Musk and Ric Grenell have recently come out in favor of shutting them down.