BBC executives will demand answers this week about how the corporation came to broadcast a Gaza documentary fronted by a boy with links to Hamas.
Tim Davie, the director-general, and the rest of the board are to hold talks amid condemnation of the film, which was shown on BBC2 then pulled from iPlayer.
Davie and Samir Shah, the chairman, are both said to want an explanation for the debacle, which has fuelled critics’ claims the corporation has been biased in its reporting of the conflict.
Last Monday, BBC2 broadcast what it described as an “unflinching view” of life in a combat zone. The documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, followed the lives of four young people and included harrowing scenes such as a young boy having his arm amputated.
In the trailer, 13-year-old Abdullah al-Yazouri said amid scenes of people running in rubble and plumes from explosions: “Let me tell you our story, who knows, one day you might need it.”
After it was broadcast, a report by the journalist David Collier claimed Abdullah was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, the deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government.
The BBC then released a statement acknowledging the “family connections of the film’s narrator”.
It said: “The narrator of this film is 13-year-old Abdullah. His father has worked as a deputy agriculture minister for the Hamas-run government in Gaza. The production team had full editorial control of filming with Abdullah.”
The BBC statement added: “We’ve promised our audiences the highest standards of transparency, so it is only right that as a result of this new information, we add some more detail to the film before its retransmission.”
The identity of the narrator was added to the film on iPlayer. It was also due to be rebroadcast two days later.
However, after the Hamas link was revealed, a group of about 45 prominent Jewish figures — including Danny Cohen, the BBC’s former director of television, the actress Tracy Ann-Oberman and Claudia Rosencrantz, the former controller of entertainment at ITV — called on the BBC to take down the programme.
The BBC pulled the documentary two days later and said it was “conducting further due diligence with the production company”.
This weekend a source close to the board, which is meeting on Thursday, said it is taking a “very real” interest in the matter.
“The BBC is currently doing additional diligence on the documentary and the board will want to see the outcome of that work once complete. The board has a scheduled meeting later this week where this matter is on the agenda,” the source said.
Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, is said to have demanded answers
SIMON DAWSON/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
Neil Blair, JK Rowling’s literary agent, who was among those to sign the letter of complaint, said he hopes the BBC board will discuss more than just the documentary.
He said: “For me this is just the latest in a sadly long line of damaging and regrettable decisions in the BBC’s coverage of Israel in general, the current conflict and quite frankly issues surrounding the UK Jewish community. It is long overdue that the board and Tim — who I like and respect — accept and acknowledge that there is a problem at the BBC and take steps to address it.”
Simon Sebag Montefiore, the historian, who said he was supportive of the signatories, said: “I hope the meeting will confront not just the disgraceful film but also the much deeper ideological system and culture of bias and factual misreporting that has been brazen since October 7.”
The BBC documentary features the lives of four young Gazans
IBRAHIM ABU ASHAYBA/BBC
On Thursday Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, said she would discuss the programme with Davie as part of talks about its coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
She said the BBC generally takes “more care than other broadcasters in terms of the way that they try to portray these things” but added: “It’s something that I will be discussing with them, particularly around the way in which they sourced the people who were featured in the programme.”
She added: “They’ve been attacked for being too pro-Gaza. They’ve been attacked for being anti-Gaza. But it is absolutely essential that we get this right.”
The documentary was commissioned by BBC Current Affairs. It is co-directed by the Emmy award-winning filmmaker Jamie Roberts, who was behind Ukraine: Enemy in the Woods, and Yousef Hammash who last year won a Bafta alongside the Channel 4 News team for the documentary This is Gaza.
In a description of the documentary on their website, Hoyo Films wrote: “The documentary sheds new light on life inside Gaza’s humanitarian ‘safe-zone’ — showing everyday life with ongoing airstrikes and efforts to keep people alive in its only functioning hospital, the al-Aqsa.
“This film is narrated by Abdullah, a 13-year-old who asks: ‘Have you ever wondered what you’d do if your world was destroyed?’
“He guides viewers through his life in the safe-zone, where we also meet Renad, aged 10, Zakaria, aged 11, and Rana, aged 24. Despite terrifying air strikes and sudden evacuations there are moments of hope as they attempt to go about normal life — cooking, relaxing at the beach, organising weddings and, in the case of Rana, giving birth. They all hope for a ceasefire and look forward to a future after the war.”
Hoyo Films was contacted for comment.
