The BBC was forced to broadcast criticism of itself after a Gaza documentary it rejected over concerns regarding its impartiality was awarded a Bafta.
Channel 4’s Gaza: Doctors Under Attack won the current affairs category at the Bafta TV Awards on Sunday, a year after the corporation decided not to broadcast it.
During their acceptance speeches, members of the film team condemned the corporation’s handling of the documentary and challenged BBC One to include their remarks in its coverage of the ceremony.
The documentary had originally been commissioned by the BBC but was later dropped by management over concerns it could undermine the broadcaster’s reputation for impartiality. The decision came after controversy surrounding another Gaza documentary – Gaza: How To Survive a War Zone – which did not disclose that its child narrator was the son of a Hamas official.
The BBC halted work on the documentary last April, and then withdrew from the project entirely after the documentary’s presenter, Ramita Navai, gave an interview in which she described Israel as “a rogue state that is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass murdering Palestinians”.
At the time, the broadcaster said: “We have come to the conclusion that broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC. Impartiality is a core principle of BBC News. It is one of the reasons that we are the world’s most trusted broadcaster.”
The film was then picked up by Channel 4 and broadcast in July last year.
During her acceptance speech at the Bafta Awards, Navai claimed that 1,700 Palestinian doctors and healthcare workers had been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza hospitals, and alleged that a further 400 had been detained.
“These are the findings of our investigation that the BBC paid for, but refused to show, but we refused to be silenced and censored. We thank Channel 4 for showing this film,” Navai said.
Producer Ben de Pear also addressed the BBC directly, saying: “Just a question for the BBC: given that you dropped our film, will you drop us from the Bafta screening later tonight?”
The Bafta ceremony was broadcast on BBC One on a two-hour delay. BBC aired an edited version of Navai’s speech instead, removing her claims about Israel’s actions.
Gaza: Doctors Under Attack wins a BAFTA Award
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) May 10, 2026
Executive Producer Ben de Pear, "Just a question for the BBC, given you that you dropped our film will you drop us from the BAFTA TV screening later on tonight?"
And guess what, they edited it to this shorter version pic.twitter.com/2dYBSEShWu
JC columnist Tanya Gold watched the film last year and argued that it is not objective journalism but “a typical piece of activist journalism” that presents “incomplete truths wrapped in the ponderous score of a horror film”.
She also claimed the documentary largely omits Hamas and its role in the conflict and actually harms the Palestinian cause by reducing it to what she portrays as one-sided activism rather than the full picture. “Half-truths serve no one,” she wrote.
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