BBC apologises for using Hamas minister's son in documentary
The BBC has been forced to apologise for using the son of a Hamas government minister in a documentary about ordinary Palestinians.
The documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was broadcast on Monday evening as an account of the conflict through the eyes of three Gazan children.
It has since emerged the hour-long film's narrator – Abdullah Al-Yazouri, 14 – is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who is deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government.
The BBC issued an apology on Wednesday night, claiming it 'had not been informed' of the connection by the documentary's producers before it was broadcast.
'We followed all of our usual compliance procedures in the making of this film, but we had not been informed of this information by the independent producers when we complied and then broadcast the finished film,' a spokesman said.
Danny Cohen, the former controller of BBC Television, said the corporation had failed to do 'basic journalistic checks' and accused it of 'trying to throw the producer of the documentary under the bus'.
'Yesterday the BBC claimed they had 'full editorial control',' he said. 'Today it is someone else's fault.
'The serious questions asked of the BBC remain unanswered: why did our national broadcaster fail to carry out the basic journalistic checks needed to ensure that propaganda from the terrorists of Hamas was not broadcast in primetime?'
The apology came a day after the BBC defended the hour-long film, saying it had full editorial control over the content and that the children's parents had no editorial input.
In the documentary, the boy's background was not revealed to viewers and it is not clear if the film crew were aware of his links to Hamas.
The corporation has now added a disclaimer to the documentary, which admits the Hamas link but continues to insist the documentary makers had 'full editorial control'.
'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,' a spokesman said.
He added: 'The film remains a powerful child's eye view of the devastating consequences of the war in Gaza which we believe is an invaluable testament to their experiences, and we must meet our commitment to transparency.'
A formal complaint about the film was lodged on Tuesday by the campaign group Labour Against Antisemitism, which said the documentary saw 'Hamas propaganda promoted as reliable fact at the taxpayers' expense'.
Critics said the BBC had allowed itself to be used as a propaganda platform for Hamas by giving airtime to the child of one of its senior figures.
Questions were also raised over whether Mr Abdullah's family should have been known to the production team behind the documentary, particularly the two Palestinian cameramen who filmed the three children.
How to Survive a Warzone was produced for BBC2 by Jamie Roberts, whose previous work includes Ukraine: Enemy in the Woods, and This is Gaza, which followed film-maker Yousef Hammash, a Palestinian currently living in Britain.
The film – which was nine months in the making – also looks at the plight of Zakaria, 11, and Renad, 10.
Mr Abdullah, who attended the British school in Gaza before the war, has previously appeared in a Channel 4 news item, broadcast in November 2023, speaking about the devastation wrought by Israeli bombing.
Mr Alyazouri, his father, previously appeared to praise two Hamas 'martyrs' who were said to have been involved in the murder of four Israelis in 2023.
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