From the Liveblog of
Monday, July 14, 2025
BBC says Gaza documentary breached guidelines by not disclosing narrator was Hamas official’s son
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleThe BBC says its documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone” breached an editorial guideline by not disclosing that the child narrator was the son of a major Hamas governmental figure.
The British public broadcaster says its internal review, carried out independently of the news department, finds no other breaches of editorial guidelines and no evidence that outside interests “inappropriately impacted on the programme.”
“Careful consideration of the requirements of due impartiality was undertaken in this project given the highly contested nature of the subject matter,” the review finds.
However, the review says the role of the narrator’s father was “critical information,” which was not shared with the BBC ahead of the broadcast.
“Regardless of how the significance or otherwise of the narrator’s father’s position was judged, the audience should have been informed about this,” the report says.
The report concludes that the independent production company HOYO Films did not deliberately mislead the BBC, but bears the most responsibility in the matter. However, the review says that the public broadcaster does bear some responsibility.
The review says, among a number of recommendations, that the BBC will issue new editorial guidance on the translation of the word “Yahud/ Yahudi” into English and that staff should now default to using the literal translation of those terms as “Jews/ Jewish.”
All mentions of the word had been translated to “Israelis” or “Israeli forces” in the documentary.
“Given the serious editorial breach identified in the production of Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, we do not think it is appropriate to reinstate the programme in its current form to iPlayer,” the broadcaster says, referring to its online streaming tool.
“However, as we said at the time, it is important to tell the story of what is happening in Gaza, despite BBC News being prevented from reporting independently on the ground,” the report says.
The Times of Israel Community.