BBC breached guidelines over Gaza documentary

The BBC has been found to have breached its editorial guidelines on accuracy after failing to disclose that the narrator of a documentary about Gaza was the son of a Hamas official.

- KERRI-ANN ROPER

The programme, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was pulled from BBC iPlayer in February following revelations that the child narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who served as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.

An independent review, led by Peter Johnston, the director of editorial complaints and reviews, concluded the programme violated accuracy standards for “failing to disclose information about the child narrator’s father’s position within the Hamas-run government”.

However, Mr Johnston’s review found no other breaches of editorial guidelines, including those related to impartiality. It also determined there was no evidence that outside interests “inappropriately impacted on the programme”.

The report said that “careful consideration of the requirements of due impartiality was undertaken in this project, given the highly contested nature of the subject matter”.