Hamas praises Gary Lineker’s now deleted anti-Israel retweet

Hamas has proudly championed a retweet by BBC sports pundit Gary Lineker calling for Israel to be banned from international football.

BBC’s Match of the Day presenter re-posted – then deleted – a tweet calling for the suspension of Israel for its ‘genocidal attacks on Palestinian life’

The Quds News Network instagram account, the news wing of terror group, which has more than 462,000 followers, praised the presenter in a post viewed more than 42,000 times.

Its news site also carried the headline: “Renowned English broadcaster calls for Israel to be banned from international footballer (sic).”

Lineker reportedly deleted his retweet after realising the post was not “football news”.

Former Football Association chair David Bernstein told Jewish News: “A person should be judged by the company they keep. It is therefore startling to see the reported support by a Hamas spokesperson thanking Gary Lineker. Surely the BBC must now act.”

Former BBC head of television Danny Cohen said: “It seems very clear that Gary Lineker has breached the BBC’s impartiality guidelines, this time in relation to the specific area on which he presents for the BBC. The message he re-posted supports the racist boycott movement against Israel and the reference to genocide is deeply offensive to the Jewish community.

“Deleting the post after it has been shared with millions of people does not solve the problem. The BBC’s senior management should act immediately. If they chose not to do so they are proving again to be wilfully blind to issues of bias and antisemitism within the corporation.”

Critics have noted that Lineker has made no comment on this week’s major football news that an Israeli footballer was arrested in Turkey for showing solidarity with hostages during a match.

As reported by Jewish News, Sagiv Jehezkel pointed to his wristband where the text “100 days. October 7,” was written after scoring against Trabzonspor.

Released from custody for “inciting people to hatred and hostility”, Jehezkel was flown back to Israel.

The BBC declined to comment when approached by Jewish News.