BBC warned to pull Gaza documentary ‘featuring son of Hamas official’ ...Middle East

The BBC is under pressure to withdraw a documentary about life in Gaza which was allegedly narrated by the son of a high-ranking Hamas official.

The corporation is facing questions over Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone, originally broadcast on Monday, including what bosses knew about the child narrator and whether they failed to disclose his background.

Danny Cohen, the ex-BBC Director of Television, said the programme should be pulled from the iPlayer and repeat showings cancelled, pending an independent investigation into concerns that the documentary may have breached the broadcaster’s own editorial standards and compliance rules.

He said: “At an absolute minimum, audiences and licence fee payers, should have been made aware that the son of a Hamas leader is in it.”

Leo Pearlman, managing partner of TV production company Fulwell 73 and executive producer of the Gavin & Stacey Christmas specials, called the film “propaganda aimed at influencing the West”.

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Cohen, Pearlman, other prominent Jewish figures including actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, as well as anonymous BBC staff, signed a letter urging BBC Director-General Tim Davie to take action.

The row is the first major test for BBC Chairman Samir Shah, an award-winning current affairs filmmaker, who has said the BBC should conduct a “deep, systematic” review of its coverage of the Middle East conflict.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism called on Shah to personally intervene in the row and fast-track an investigation into whether the film broke the BBC’s editorial guidelines.

When asked by The i Paper, the BBC declined to say whether the current affairs executives who commissioned the film were told about the alleged Hamas family connection or quizzed the directors on the documentary’s sources.

The BBC said the documentary was “produced in line with BBC editorial guidelines and the BBC had full editorial control”.

Insiders said the row was embarrassing for the BBC, which is spending millions of pounds on its fact-checking news unit Verify, described as “transparency in action.”

“Why wasn’t the BBC transparent about telling viewers the full story about the documentary narrator?” one staffer asked.

The hour-long film was narrated by a 14-year-old English-speaking boy named Abdullah, who is listed in the film’s credits under his full name, Abdullah Al-Yazouri.

The film begins with Abdullah asking: “Have you ever wondered what you’d do if your world is destroyed?”

It has since been claimed that Abdullah’s father, Ayman Alyazouri, is a senior figure who currently holds the position of deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government.

The alleged familial connection was brought to light by investigative journalist David Collier, who asked why viewers were at no point told that the teenager was linked to Hamas. The boy is said to hail from the same family as Ibrahim al-Yazouri, one of the founders of Hamas.

Abdullah had also appeared in a recent Channel 4 documentary in the company of a different man who was presented as his father, Collier claimed.

The letter to the BBC asked: “Was it known to the BBC that the narrator and principal contributor of the documentary, Abdullah Al-Yazouri, is the son of a senior leader of the proscribed terrorist group, Hamas?”

“If the BBC was aware,” it went on, “why was this not disclosed to audiences during the programme?”

Conversely, if the BBC was not aware who Abdullah Al-Yazouri’s father was “what diligence checks were undertaken and why did they fail?”

The documentary includes another child being critical of Hamas and the letter asked what steps the BBC has taken to protect the individual’s safety and welfare.

The signatories wrote: “Given the serious nature of these concerns, will the BBC postpone any broadcast repeats of the programme (scheduled for Wednesday night and next Tuesday), remove it from iPlayer and take down any social media clips of the programme until an independent investigation is carried out and its findings published with full transparency for licence-fee payers?”

The documentary

Since foreign journalists are not allowed by Israel to enter Gaza and report independently, the documentary was shot over nine months by two Gazan cameramen, who were remotely directed from London.

Co-director Jamie Roberts said: “Yousef (Hammash) and I wanted to make this documentary to show what everyday life is like for Gazan people trying to survive the horrors of this conflict as it unfolded.

“We focused on three children and a young woman with a newborn because they are the innocents in this war.”

Introducing the participants, Roberts wrote in a BBC blog: “Abdullah, 13, narrates the film. He speaks excellent English having attended the British school in Gaza before the war and does all he can to keep going with his education.”

In press materials issued ahead of broadcast, the BBC said: “Abdullah and his family were forced to evacuate their home when the war started, and he now lives in a tent in the south of the safe-zone.”

“With food and water scarce and no schools to attend, he tries to make sense of the conflict and his new reality. He dreams of the day he can return to school and take his exams.”

Viewers would not have been aware of any Hamas family connection.

The i Paper approached the BBC for its response to Cohen’s letter.

A BBC spokesperson previously said: “The film told the children’s own stories, showing viewers their direct experiences of living through a war, and the children’s parents did not have any editorial input.

“As the BBC has previously explained, the film was edited and directed from London, as independent international journalists are not allowed into Gaza.”

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) raised concerns that a clip from the documentary featuring Abdullah was used as the lead story on children’s programme Newsround.

A spokesperson said: “The BBC must pull this documentary completely pending a full and transparent investigation. BBC Chair Samir Shah must urgently intervene.”

The latest dispute follows complaints from Cohen that the BBC displays a persistent anti-Israel bias, citing evidence including BBC Arabic reporters displaying sympathy on social media for the Hamas terrorist attacks.

However, a letter to Davie from more than 100 BBC employees accused the corporation of providing favourable coverage towards Israel and called on the broadcaster to “recommit to fairness, accuracy, and impartiality” over its reporting on Gaza.

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