On the evening of February 23, The National, CBC News’s flagship television program, incorrectly referred to jailed Palestinian terrorists and murderers with blood on their hands – all who were scheduled to be released as part of Phase 1 of the ceasefire agreement – as “Palestinian hostages.”

In truth, these Palestinians included terrorists, rapists and murderers who have innocent blood on their hands, and by no definition whatsoever should they be labelled as “hostages”.

Israel does not take anyone, Palestinian or otherwise, hostage, an implication that Israel takes innocent people captive with the goal of using them as leverage to advance their interests. Instead, Israel arrests, detains and in many cases, prosecutes and works to convict Palestinians that they suspect (and have confirmed) were complicit in carrying out terrorism and violence, many who have committed mass casualty terror attacks. As to the makeup of the 600, they include both detainees and prisoners, but for CBC to claim they are all “hostages” is to spread an odious falsehood.

After HonestReporting Canada alerted the public and lodged a complaint directly with CBC News calling for an immediate correction to be issued, we are pleased to note that our public broadcaster corrected the erroneous news ticker and posted a statement to the CBC’s website which reads:

March 1, 2025

On Feb. 23, a graphic appeared briefly on screen on The National referring to the impending release of 600 hostages from Israel. In fact, the 620 Palestinians expected to be released included people who were either detained by Israeli forces in Gaza or jailed in Israel. The graphic was amended for online versions of the program.

We thank the CBC for taking corrective action and for fixing this egregious falsehood it broadcast nationwide.