By Crystal-Rose Jones

Executives at Australia’s multicultural Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) were asked to explain why the outlet does not categorize Hamas as “terrorists” in their reporting.

Mandi Wicks, SBS’s news and current affairs director, and Clare O’Neil, the corporate affairs director, appeared before the Senate Environment and Communications Committee on Oct. 27 during Senate Estimates hearings.

Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson put the questions to SBS’s top brass asking why staff were given a directive to refer to Hamas as militants, and not terrorists.

“Look, we’ve just looked quite extensively at your reporting on this issue and the continuing reference to Hamas is to ‘militants’ and the term ‘terrorist’ is used, sort of, in quotation marks,” she said.

Militants are defined as people who engage in armed action for a cause, while terrorists are defined as those who use violence to instill fear or achieve political, ideological, or religious goals.

“We describe them as militants, but we also provide the additional context that they are designated as a terrorist organization by the Australian government and many others,” Wicks said.

“We don’t refer to anyone as a terrorist, but we absolutely attribute that, and we do give that context to our audiences by explaining that they are designated a terrorist organization.”

Wicks argued there was enough general context around Hamas for readers to draw their own conclusions.

Since 2022, the Australian government has listed the Hamas organization as a terror group, while its militant wing Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades has been listed since 2003.

Corporate Affairs Director O’Neil further added that the broadcaster considers Hamas a Palestinian political and military group.

“SBS does not describe Hamas as a terrorist organization, except in circumstances where the description is a direct quote or can be attributed,” she said.

O’Neil said SBS may list a person or group as a terrorist if “individuals or organizations describe themselves as terrorists or being responsible for acts of terrorism.”

What is Hamas?

Hamas, was founded in 1987 as an off-shoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, and is the current elected government in Gaza.

The group’s name translates to the Islamic Resistance Movement, with its primary goal to remove the Jewish state of Israel and replace it with a Palestinian government under Sunni Islam.

International human rights group Amnesty International released a report in 2025 where it found members of Hamas and its civilian supporters, had committed crimes against humanity during the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks on Israel, which resulted in over 1,200 deaths and several kidnappings.

The listed crimes included murder, extermination, sexual assault, torture, imprisonment, sexual slavery, as well as forced prostitution, pregnancy, and sterilization.