BBC: Oops. Sorry Not Sorry About Producing and Broadcasting Hamas Propaganda

The BBC produced and aired a documentary purporting to feature a young child struggling to survive in the Gaza war zone. 

It was, as all such documentaries are, stunning and brave. It tugged your heartstrings. You connected with the vital true story of an innocent child being chased down by genocidal maniac Israeli tyrants. 

The film Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone hit all the high notes, except one: telling the truth. The intrepid narrator of the “independent” film (was it partially funded by USAID?) is the son of the Hamas Minister of Agriculture. 

They happened to leave that detail out. 

Oh dear, this is a major blunder. The BBC admits it did not know that the child protagonist in documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was the son of Hamas royalty. It blames the independent producer for not sharing this info during editorial checks. https://t.co/0Ypw5yXvCG

— Jake Kanter (@Jake_Kanter) February 19, 2025

Oops. That puts a bit of a different spin on things, doesn’t it?

The BBC has apologized and added a clarification to its Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone documentary that featured the son of a Hamas minister, after nearly 50 entertainment figures sent a letter to the corporation to urge an investigation.

The BBC “had not been informed of this information” by the independent producers behind the doc, the corporation added, following backlash from dozens of senior entertainment figures including former BBC controller Danny Cohen, J.K. Rowling’s agent Neil Blair, agent Anita Land and ex-Got Talent commissioner Claudia Rosencrantz.

The letter was sent to Director General Tim Davie, content chief Charlotte Moore and BBC News boss Deborah Turness earlier today, urging an investigation after the documentary about children in Gaza that failed to declare that the lead contributor was the son of Hamas royalty.

Before the airing, lots of critics were raising the alarm that the “documentary” would be pure propaganda, but the BBC assured everyone that all the appropriate editorial standards were met. It was “independent,” but used BBC standards. I suppose that is true in the sense that the BBC is itself a propaganda outlet. 

Now the BBC is going the other direction. “It’s not our fault. They never told us this minor fact.”

Here’s a statement from Danny Cohen, the former BBC television chief turned BBC interrogator-in-chief, who has been consistently raising concerns about anti-Israeli bias in Gaza crisis coverage. pic.twitter.com/rHqpH0KrIC

— Jake Kanter (@Jake_Kanter) February 19, 2025

Not that they care. They will continue to air the documentary, simply appending a note that the child is related to a Hamas minister. 

In a statement in the past few minutes, the BBC said that since the transmission of the doc three days ago it had “become aware of the family connections of the film’s narrator, a child called Abdullah.” “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 statement added. “We apologise for the omission of that detail from the original film.”

For future repeats and on iPlayer, the film will now clarify: “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 statement has been added to the BBC’s Corrections and Clarifications page and the BBC said it will also respond to the letter directly.

The BBC went on to say that it followed the usual compliance procedures in making the film and “had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we complied and then broadcast the finished film.” Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone was produced by Hoyo Films, the independent producer run by the doc’s director Jamie Roberts, and it was commissioned through the BBC’s current affairs team, which sits under Turness.

The BBC commissioned the film. They had editorial control over it, by their own admission. They aired it without informing people about the most basic fact in the world: the narrator was a Hamas member. And now they will continue to air it as a documentary, not as an example of a modern-day Triumph of the Will. 

British taxpayers paid for this. It is likely that USAID contributed to it through our funding of BBC’s “charity” funding of “independent” journalists. 

The BBC’s initial statement issued yesterday about the narrator’s links to Hamas appears to try and put distance between Abdullah Al-Yazouri and his father, stating: “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.” But the letter flags the BBC’s international safeguarding policy rules and regulator Ofcom’s broadcasting rules, asking questions including: “What role did Abdullah Al-Yazouri’s parents play in the supervision of the filming of the child and the BBC’s duty of care obligations in filming with under-18s?”

“Given that the terrorist group Hamas remain in de facto control of Gaza, it is reasonable to presume that the documentary could only be made with their permission or authorisation,” it adds. “Was this the case? If so, why was this not disclosed to audiences?”

The BBC expects us to buy the argument that a documentary featuring a Hamas minister’s child, in Hamas-held and ruled Gaza, in the midst of a Hamas-Israeli war, was not influenced by Hamas?

Yes, yes they do. Because if you can’t trust the BBC, who can you trust?