BBC slammed for pulling film that ‘humanised Palestinian children’

The BBC has pulled its documentary about children in Gaza from iPlayer after mounting pressure over a featured child being the son of a Palestinian minister, in a move some commentators have slammed as “cowardly”.

Outrage over Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone reached its highest point on Wednesday and Thursday, with the Israeli ambassador in London complaining to Britain’s public broadcaster, and culture secretary Lisa Nandy saying she will “be discussing” the issue with the BBC. 

Most criticism has focused on the fact, first reported by researcher David Collier, that the documentary’s 13-year-old narrator Abdullah Alyazouri is the son of a minister in Gaza’s Hamas-run government.

Middle East Eye found on Thursday that Dr Ayman Alyazouri, Gaza’s deputy agriculture minister, appears to be a technocrat with a scientific background who previously worked for the United Arab Emirates government and studied at British universities.

This had not been reported elsewhere in the media.

The BBC said on Friday: “Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone features important stories we think should be told, those of the experiences of children in Gaza.

“There have been continuing questions raised about the programme, and in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place.”

‘This documentary humanised Palestinian children’

Earlier this week a group of 45 prominent Jewish journalists and members of the media, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, piled on pressure by sending a letter to the broadcaster demanding the film be removed from the iPlayer.

The letter referred to the minister as a “terrorist leader”. Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in Britain.

But others have defended the film itself.

Chris Doyle, the director of CAABU (Council for Arab-British Understanding), told Middle East Eye: “It’s very regrettable that this documentary has been pulled following pressure from anti-Palestinian activists who have largely shown no sympathy for persons in Gaza suffering from massive bombardment, starvation, and disease.”

Doyle added: “This documentary humanised Palestinian children in Gaza in a way that gave valuable insights into what life is like in this horrific warzone day in, day out.

“Its production was first class and the BBC has to conduct this review in an independent fashion that ensures all perspectives are taken into this account, with the view to getting it back on air as quickly as possible.”

Prominent film-maker and journalist Richard Sanders, who produced multiple documentaries on Gaza for Al Jazeera during Israel’s war on the enclave, said on Thursday that the row was a “huge test” for the BBC.

“If it fails to stand firm with the film-makers it will send an appalling signal.”

Responding to the news that the film was pulled from iPlayer on Friday, he slammed the BBC’s move as a “cowardly decision”.

Alyazouri, the minister at the heart of the row over the documentary, taught chemistry in a high school in Dubai.

According to his CV, he also studied at British universities, gaining a masters degree in analytical chemistry from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge in 2004.

Alyazouri then did a PhD in environmental analytical chemistry at the University of Huddersfield, which he completed in 2010.

During that time, between 2003 and 2011, he was a specialist in the UAE’s education ministry, designing textbooks and editing the science curriculum.

In 2011, he became an assistant deputy minister in Gaza’s ministry of education.

His current role as deputy minister of agriculture, which he began in July 2021, involves supervising and supporting “agricultural activities” in Gaza, “especially in the field of crops cultivation, livestock and fishing”, according to his LinkedIn profile.