Overview

• Amanpour issued an on-air and social media apology, calling her earlier comment about hostages being treated better than Gazans “insensitive and wrong.”
• Her original remarks framed hostages as leverage for Hamas and noted Gaza’s destroyed medical and mental‑health infrastructure and restricted journalist access.
• Israeli officials and commentators, including the Israel Foreign Ministry and Richard Grenell, condemned the comment as downplaying the captives’ suffering.
• Survivor accounts cited in coverage detail starvation, torture, sexual violence, and forced labor, with examples including Ron Krivoi and Evyatar David.
• The controversy followed Hamas’s release of 20 living hostages in the first phase of a ceasefire deal brokered by President Donald Trump that also included prisoner releases by Israel.