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BBC faces scrutiny over claims it paid Hamas-linked figures for Gaza film as Conservatives demand answers on taxpayer funding going towards Hamas.
By MICHAEL STARR FEBRUARY 25, 2025 21:30
Abdullah Al-Yazouri, the son of a senior Hamas official, who narrated the BBC documentary.
(photo credit: screenshot)
An investigation must be opened to explore the possibilities that the British Broadcasting Corporation paid and colluded with Hamas officials to produce a Gaza documentary, Conservative Party Leader said in a Sunday letter to BBC director-general Tim Davie.
Badenoch's letter, which came in the wake of researcher David Collier's expose last Tuesday on Hamas connections to a BBC production, called for an independent inquiry to examine the commission and development of the documentary "Gaza: How to survive a warzone."
Collier said that the BBC had given £400,000 to produce the documentary, which follows four young Palestinians living in a humanitarian zone in Gaza.
According to the BBC website the productions showed "everyday life with ongoing airstrikes and efforts to keep people alive in its only functioning permanent hospital," but Collier reported that the father of the show's narrator, 13-year-old Abdullah Al-Yazouri, was a senior Hamas official.
The father of another child featured in the film was a Hamas police officer. Collier also claimed that the cameramen had praised terrorist attacks in Israel.
Conservative MP Suella Braverman questioned on X Monday how the state broadcaster had failed to perform checks that resulted it publishing a "propaganda film for a terrorist organization that wants to wipe Jewish people from the earth."
According to Badenoch, BBC had been defensive about the documentary, assuring that it complied with usual compliance procedures when producing the item, and kept the program available on its website. At the time of writing, the documentary has been delisted from the BBC iPlayer.
Protests against BBC
Campaign Against Antisemitism was set to hold a protest on Tuesday outside the BBC London Broadcasting House to demand answers for whether license fees had been used to pay Hamas or those affiliated with the proscribed terrorist organization.
Braverman called for an abolition of television licenses paid by UK citizens, arguing that the fee "and weak accountability mean they can get away with anything."
Board of Deputies of British Jews President Phil Rosenberg said on social media on Monday that he was concerned about the approach that the BBC held toward Hamas and added his voice to the growing chorus for an independent inquiry into the culture and personnel of the broadcaster.
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Badenoch also said Sunday that an inquiry into the BBC would have to explore the "repeated and serious allegations of systemic and institutional bias against Israel in the BBC's coverage of the war."
This allegedly included false equivalence between Israel and Hamas, bias at BBC Arabic, and interviews in which there were robust interrogations of Israeli representatives while Palestinian officials were met with no challenge.
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