The BBC has been asked to remove a documentary about children living in Gaza from BBC iPlayer after it emerged the film’s 13-year-old narrator is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, a deputy agriculture minister in the territory’s Hamas-run government.
The corporation said that it had discovered the family connections of the film’s English-speaking narrator, a child called Abdullah, after the documentary was aired on BBC Two on Monday evening.
A new text attached to the film, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, reads: “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 decision came after the connection was exposed in a blogpost by an antisemitism researcher, David Collier, on Tuesday and reported on in the Jewish Chronicle.
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, said she would be raising the documentary with the BBC. “I watched it last night, 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 told LBC on Thursday.
“These things are difficult and I do want to acknowledge that the BBC they take more care than most broadcasters … They’ve been attacked for being too pro Gaza, they’ve been attacked for being anti Gaza.”
A group of 45 prominent Jewish journalists and members of the media, including present and former BBC staff, signed a letter to the BBC director general, Tim Davie, demanding the documentary be “removed” from iPlayer and questioning whether the film violated Ofcom rules.
The signatories to letter include former BBC governor Ruth Deech, Friday Night Dinner and EastEnders actor Tracy-Ann Oberman, Strike producer Neil Blair, former BBC One controller Danny Cohen and former ITV controller of entertainment Claudia Rosencrantz.
They say: “Given the serious nature of these concerns, the BBC should immediately postpone any broadcast repeats of the programme, remove it from iPlayer and take down any social media clips of the programme until an independent investigation is carried out and its findings published with full transparency for licence-fee payers.
“Can the BBC confirm it will take this action?”
The letter, which was also sent to the corporation’s chief content officer, Charlotte Moore, and the BBC News chief executive, Deborah Turness, asked whether it was known to the BBC that Abdullah – “the narrator and principal contributor of the documentary” – is the son of “a senior leader of the proscribed terrorist group Hamas”.
The letter asks: “If the BBC was aware that Abdullah Alyazouri was the son of a terrorist leader, why was this not disclosed to audiences during the programme? If the BBC was not aware that Abdullah Alyazouri is the son of a terrorist leader, what diligence checks were undertaken and why did they fail?”
The signatories also queried whether Abdullah’s parents had signed a release for him to appear, whether any members of Hamas were paid in connection with the film and whether the film required Hamas’ permission to be made. They also raised concerns about due diligence and audience disclosure.
The BBC said in a statement: “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. We apologise for the omission of that detail from the original film.”
All of the BBC’s usual compliance procedures in the making of the documentary had been followed, the BBC said: “But we had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we complied and then broadcast the finished film.”
The documentary was produced by production company Hoyo Films, which previously made the BBC documentary, Ukraine: Enemy in the Woods, about the war in Ukraine.
