Hamas fighters on Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: Majdi Fathi via Reuters Connect

NBC’s coverage of negotiations over a plan to ultimately rid Hamas of its weapons continues to be problematic. In at least two instances now, the outlet has presented Hamas’ agreement on disarmament as an unqualified factual description of the group’s own stated position. This comes despite a CAMERA correction request.

The first example is from Aug. 3, when Yuliya Talmazan and Yarden Segev’s piece, “Israel conveys concerns to the US about Hamas disarmament deal,” was published. They state that Hamas has “indicated that while it agreed to disarm, this was conditional on Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and complete cessation of ‘all forms of aggression.'”

Hamas itself disputes the characterization. The use of the word “indicated” grants Talmazan and Segev some leeway with the phrasing, but Hamas senior official and spokesman Ghazi Hamad told the Wall Street Journal on July 30 that the group “didn’t say disarmament, didn’t say handing over the weapons, and didn’t agree on any Israeli involvement.” Instead, Hamad clarifies that Hamas has agreed to “place its weapons in storage,” in control of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), Gaza’s proposed transitional, technocratic government.  According to Neomi Neumann of The Washington Institute, “Israel insists on the physical removal” of weapons from Gaza’s territory, while Hamas will interpret the storage of weapons inside Gaza as meeting the deal’s requirements. The latest 15-point roadmap also does not define which weapons would be prohibited in the future Gaza managed by the NCAG.

The Journal report adds that Egyptian mediators did not “explicitly mention that Hamas agreed to disarm in an official statement, noting instead ‘their agreement to the road map’ and a future meeting in Cairo ‘to discuss implementation mechanisms and reaffirm the commitment of all parties to the terms of the agreement.'” Translated from bureaucratic speech, Hamas – infamously patient and determined to drag negotiations out – simply agreed to another lengthy process to continue talking about disarmament.

Coming four days later, Talmazan and Segev’s report should have mentioned these crucial details.

But NBC reporters erred in the same manner when covering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Aug. 9 statement that the Israel Defense Forces would not withdraw until Hamas was completely disarmed. It’s to be noted that the original 20-Point Plan calls for the IDF to withdraw from the Yellow Line only after Hamas has been disarmed, a fact reiterated on Aug. 3 by the Board, of Peace.

In the article, “Israel rejects Trump’s 15-point plan for Gaza, Netanyahu says,” Mithil Aggarwal reported that “Hamas had last month said that it would disarm, but only after Israel withdraws completely and stops all hostilities. The group also said that laying down its heavy weapons would come later in the process, conditional on the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Even within the paragraph, there are major conditional qualifiers to Hamas’ purported statement. Once again, NBC confidently presents the word “disarm,” even after the terrorist organization’s own spokesperson disclosed that it was not currently an option.

Washington remains more optimistic. President Donald Trump stated on July 30 that negotiators had “reached a historic agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza.”

NBC reported the news as if Hamas had published an official statement agreeing to the disarmament process, but without any official Hamas statement confirming that it had agreed to disarm.

One should welcome progress in ridding Hamas of its weapons, but statements without enforcement are empty words. These statements are characterizations of Hamas’ position by the United States and the Board of Peace, the US-created international body tasked with overseeing the ceasefire in Gaza. These are not statements from Hamas itself, and NBC news should not accept them as on-the-ground reality.

To the contrary, Hamas has made it clear that it did not agree to a concrete disarmament process. The group, which Hamad speaks for on the international level, is signaling that it is willing to only store its guns in Gazan warehouses, so that it can seize them again in violent raids when the time comes.

NBC misrepresented the recent Gaza development. CAMERA sent a correction request to NBC on Aug. 4 to fix the initial error. The email remains unanswered, and Talmazan and Segev’s piece remains unchanged. In the future, NBC should represent Hamas’ positions with a more scrutiny, instead of presenting a US characterization of the supposed July agreement as Hamas’ stated position itself.

The author writes for the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), where a version of this article first appeared.