BBC releases long-awaited report into scandalous Gaza documentary

The BBC has published its long-awaited report into its decision to broadcast and then take down a documentary purportedly about children’s lives in Gaza. The film was removed from iPlayer after it was revealed that its thirteen-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official.

In February, the BBC apologised after an interim report identified “serious flaws” in the making of Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, which was made for the BBC by production company Hoyo Films.

This report, which sheds little additional light, has been led by Peter Johnston, the BBC’s Director of Editorial Complaints and Reviews, which is reportedly independent of BBC News and reports directly to Director General Tim Davie.

In February, BBC Two broadcast a documentary called ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’. It was directed by Yousef Hammash and Jamie Roberts and purported to follow the lives of four young people during the current Hamas-Israel war in the Strip. It was found that the narrator of the film was the son of a senior Hamas official.

Only days later, the BBC provided a stage for stomach-churning claims from the very same antisemitic genocidal group. As Jews across the world watched Ariel and Kfir Bibas – an infant child and a baby who were murdered in cold blood in Gaza – being returned in coffins on our screens, the BBC led its updates with the headline: “Hamas says it did ‘everything in its power’ to keep hostages alive.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism organised two protests at Broadcasting House, where we called for the BBC to stop whitewashing terrorism and stop serving as spokespeople for Hamas. The second protest was organised following the BBC’s admission of “serious flaws” relating to the documentary, and confirmation that licence fee payers’ money was handed to the family of the senior Hamas official.

We also launched a campaign across national newspapers, calling for the suspension of the licence fee, pending an independent investigation. Our petition making that demand has received tens of thousands of signatures.

In March, BBC Chair Dr Samir Shah admitted to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee that “There’s a dagger to the heart of the BBC’s claim to be impartial and to be trustworthy.” Director General Tim Davie admitted that there was a “serious failing” but still insisted: “We’re the most trusted brand in the world.”

92% of British Jews rate the BBC’s coverage of matters of Jewish interest as unfavourable, according to our representatives polling, while 57% of the British public back an independent investigation into the BBC Gaza film scandal; only 21% do not.

Gideon Falter, Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism, said: “We’ve waited months for this report, only for the BBC to try to bury it under Greg Wallace’s professional corpse. Even so, the report says nothing we didn’t already know: paying licence fee money to a Hamas family was bad. The report yields no new insight, and almost reads like it’s trying to exonerate the BBC. The recommendations are frankly insulting. The only one with any merit – which isn’t even in the final list – is to consider introducing more accurate translations of Arabic curses against Jews, which the BBC has been willfully mistranslating for decades.

“The BBC is a place where bias is so ingrained that something like this could happen in the first place. This report fails to grapple with that issue in any way. We expected that from an internal BBC report, which is why we have called from the start for a thorough external investigation into bias in the BBC’s Middle East coverage and a suspension of the licence fee until that happens. If the BBC were an accountable organisation, senior executives would be scrambling to save their jobs. Instead, it’s the usual weasel pledge to ‘update some guidelines’. This is appalling. Under Director General Tim Davie the BBC has gone from national treasure to national embarrassment. He needs to go. We are in discussion with the police about taking Britain’s March Against Antisemitism to Broadcasting House on 7th September, because we cannot tackle antisemitism in Britain until we tackle the rot at the BBC.”