BBC faces questions over Gaza film's Hamas link

The BBC has added a message at the start of the programme about the identity of Abdullah Al-Yazouri's father

The culture secretary has said she will raise concerns with BBC bosses about a documentary on Gaza that was narrated by the son of a Hamas official.

The broadcaster has been criticised for Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, which centred on a 13-year-old boy who is the son of Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture.

Hamas is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK, Israel and others.

The BBC said it had not been informed of the family connection in advance by the film's production company and has apologised "for the omission of that detail".

The broadcaster has added a message to the start of the programme on its iPlayer streaming service, making clear the family link, and saying the production team had "full editorial control".

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she would discuss the matter with the BBC's director general and chairman, "particularly around the way in which they sourced the people who were featured in the programme".

A number of prominent TV figures including actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, Strike producer Neil Blair, former BBC One controller Danny Cohen and producer Leo Pearlman have written to the BBC to call for an investigation.

They said: "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."

Diligence checks

They raised concerns about the "editorial standards of this programme and the BBC's compliance with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, its own Editorial Guidelines and English law", and asked the corporation to explain what had happened.

"If the BBC was aware that Abdullah Al-Yazouri was the son of a terrorist leader, why was this not disclosed to audiences during the programme?" they asked.

"If the BBC was not aware that Abdullah Al-Yazouri is the son of a terrorist leader, what diligence checks were undertaken and why did they fail?"

The BBC has kept the programme on iPlayer and the new message at the start 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."

Child's eye view

In a statement, the BBC said: "Since the transmission of our documentary on Gaza, the BBC has 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. We apologise for the omission of that detail from the original film."

It added: "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.

"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."

Nandy said the matter was "a conversation I'll definitely be having with the BBC".

Speaking to LBC on Thursday, she said: "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.

"These things are difficult, and I do want to acknowledge that for the BBC, they take more care than most broadcasters in terms of the way that they try to portray these things. They've been attacked for being too pro-Gaza, they've been attacked for being anti-Gaza. But it is absolutely essential that we get this right."

The documentary, which aired on BBC Two on Monday, was made by Hoyo Films, which has not commented.