Henderson admits wrongly linking late ABC Gaza journalist to Hamas

Liberal senator Sarah Helderson has admitted she wrongly accused Roshdi Sarraj, a Palestinian journalist who filed video for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) from Gaza, of holding a Hamas ID card. The Guardian reported the admission on 30 October 2026.

The claim was made at a Senate estimates hearing, the committee sessions where senators question government agencies about their work. Henderson held up a printout of a report from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and cited its claim that Sarraj had a Hamas ID card. Sarraj was killed in an Israeli air strike in October 2023.

Henderson told Weekly Beast she had referred to the wrong Palestinian journalist. She said she had incorrectly stated that Sarraj held a Hamas ID card, when the people she had meant were two Al Jazeera journalists she named in the hearing, who had Hamas military ID numbers. She said she had written to the Senate communications committee to correct the Hansard, the official record of parliament.

After the hearing, Henderson telephoned ABC managing director Hugh Marks to say she had made a mistake.

The dispute centred on IDF claims that 170 media workers killed in the conflict, Sarraj among them, were Hamas operatives. At the hearing, ABC editorial director Gavin Fang told estimates that the IDF had not provided the ABC with any evidence that Sarraj had active links to Hamas.

Separately, the ABC is investigating whether a person described as a Hamas terrorist was hired to help cover the Middle East conflict.