BBC Gaza film narrated by Hamas official's son breached guidelines: Review

Britain's media regulator said Monday it will investigate a BBC documentary about children's lives in Gaza, after a review concluded that the narrator's father has Hamas links and the programme therefore breached editorial guidelines on accuracy.

The broadcaster removed the programme, Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, from its streaming service in February after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture.

Ofcom, the media regulator, said that it was launching an investigation under rules that state factual programmes must not materially mislead the audience. 

 

That came after a review by the broadcaster found that the independent production company that made the programme didn't share the background information regarding the narrator's father with the BBC. It said that the production company, Hoyo Films, bears most responsibility for the failure, though it didn't intentionally mislead the BBC.

The review, conducted by the corporation's director of editorial complaints, found no other breaches of editorial guidelines, including impartiality. There was no evidence of outside interests impacting on the programme, it said.

Earlier this year, UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy questioned why no one at the BBC had lost their job over the programme's airing.

The broadcaster's Director-General Tim Davie had told lawmakers that the BBC received hundreds of complaints alleging that the documentary was biased against Israel as well as hundreds more criticising the programme's removal from its streaming service.

Directors Ken Loach and Mike Leigh and actor Riz Ahmed were among 500 media figures who signed a letter published by Artists for Palestine UK saying a political campaign to discredit the program risked dehumanizing Palestinian voices in the media.

Davie said that the report identified a significant failing in relation to accuracy in the documentary. Hoyo Films apologized for the mistake. Both firms said they would prevent similar errors in the future.

Separately, more than 100 BBC journalists wrote a letter to Davie earlier this month criticizing its decision not to air another documentary, Gaza: Medics Under Fire." They expressed concerns that the broadcaster wasn't reporting 'without fear or favour' when it comes to Israel." 

The decision suggested that the BBC was an organization that is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government, that letter said.

The BBC has been under intense scrutiny for its coverage touching on the war in Gaza. Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and others condemned the broadcaster for livestreaming a performance by rap punk duo Bob Vylan, who led crowds at Glastonbury Festival in chanting death to the Israeli military.

The Israel-Hamas war started after the militant group led an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Most of the hostages have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

The ministry, under Gaza's Hamas-run government, doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The UN and other international organisations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.