The BBC has been accused of failing to describe Hamas as a banned terror organisation in nine out of 10 news reports.

An analysis of BBC News online stories found that the broadcaster barely mentioned that the group is a proscribed organisation banned in the UK, despite saying it would do so after the October 7 attacks on Israel.

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) found that of 145 online news articles between January 1 and April 30 this year which referred to Hamas, only 12 (8.2 per cent) explicitly stated that it was a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.

Ten articles (6.8 per cent) mentioned that Hamas was proscribed in other countries, but failed to acknowledge the UK’s designation

During the same period 30 articles (20.6 per cent) referred to Hamas as either an “armed group” or “militant group”.

Camera also found that of 17 videos on the BBC News website that referred to Hamas between January 1 and April 30, only one explicitly stated that it is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.

The findings appear to conflict with comments by Dr Samir Shah, the chairman of the BBC, in which he restated only last week that the BBC would describe Hamas as a terror group “only with attribution”, as a proscribed organisation banned by the UK Government.

At the same time, Dr Shah said that the corporation was set to appoint an independent figure to examine its handling of the Israel-Gaza conflict along with the output of its Arabic channel, which has been subjected to repeated allegations of anti-Semitism exposed by The Telegraph.

Pro-Israel media campaigners have said the failure of the BBC to consistently refer to Hamas as a terror group banned by the UK government was a betrayal of licence fee payers.