The BBC has been forced to admit it breached its own editorial guidelines after airing a Gaza documentary narrated by the son of a Hamas official—without disclosing the boy’s background to viewers.
An independent review, published on Monday, found the corporation failed to inform audiences that the 13-year-old narrator of Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture. The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the connection came to light.
The probe concluded that while the production company, Hoyo Films, bore “most responsibility” for failing to disclose this “critical information,” the BBC was also to blame for its “lack of critical oversight” and failure to pursue unanswered editorial queries.
BBC News chief Deborah Turness admitted the broadcaster “didn’t run those questions to ground,” despite repeated opportunities to do so. Director General Tim Davie described the episode as a “significant failing” and issued an apology, promising new procedures to prevent future errors.
The documentary, made at a reported cost of £400,000 in licence-payers’ money, followed the lives of young people in Gaza and was presented through the scripted narration of Abdullah al-Yazouri. Despite his prominent family ties, the BBC’s editorial team claimed to be unaware of the link prior to broadcast—though three members of the production team reportedly knew.
The review found that the BBC had raised questions about potential affiliations but failed to follow up adequately when vague or evasive answers were given. In one instance, the production company told the BBC the narrator’s social media activity was “clean” but failed to disclose his father’s Hamas role.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy described the affair as part of a “series of catastrophic failures,” and demanded to know why no one had been fired. Former BBC television director Danny Cohen said the scandal was emblematic of “systemic bias” within the BBC and called for a wider investigation into its coverage of Israel.
The BBC also admitted it mistranslated the Arabic word Yahud—meaning “Jews”—as “Israelis” in the documentary, a move widely criticised as whitewashing antisemitism. The review recommended that future translations reflect the accurate meaning of such terms.
Critics, including campaigners and journalists, have accused the BBC of amplifying Hamas propaganda and betraying the public trust. The Campaign Against Antisemitism called the film “raw Hamas propaganda,” accusing the BBC of acting as “spokespeople for terrorists.”
