The probe found that the film violated guidelines on accuracy by failing to disclose the teen’s family links to terror, but that no other rules were broken
July 14, 2025 11:21
A BBC investigation into the corporation’s airing of a documentary on Gaza narrated by the son of a Hamas official has found that it did not breach its impartiality rules.
Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone came out in February but was pulled from the iPlayer after the teen’s family links to terror were uncovered.
The review, which was conducted by Peter Johnston, the corporation’s head of Editorial Complaints and Reviews who is independent of its management, found that the BBC breached its Editorial Guidelines in terms of accuracy by failing to disclose the boy’s ties to Hamas.
Johnston said that viewers were deprived of “critical information”, adding: “Regardless of how the significance or otherwise of the Narrator’s father’s position was judged, the audience should have been informed about this.
However, he also determined that none of the other guidelines were breached, including in terms of the BBC’s responsibility to provide impartial news coverage.
The report found that “careful consideration of the requirements of due impartiality was undertaken in this project given the highly contested nature of the subject matter”.
It also stated that there was no evidence that external interests had “inappropriately impacted on the programme”.
Likewise, Johnston found that there was “no reasonable basis" to suggest that anyone paid in connection with the film was subject to sanctions (i.e. was a member of Hamas), based on an audit of the production’s finances.
Meanwhile, Johnston did not find that that the independent production company, Hoyo Films, intentionally misled the BBC over the narrator’s family, but did say that the firm “bears most responsibility for this failure”, though he concluded that the BBC still shoulders some of the blame.
In response to the report, BBC Director-General Tim Davie said: “Peter Johnston’s report identifies a significant failing in relation to accuracy in this documentary. I thank him for his thorough work and I am sorry for this failing.
“We will now take action on two fronts – fair, clear and appropriate actions to ensure proper accountability and the immediate implementation of steps to prevent such errors being repeated.”
The corporation has now published an “Action Plan” to address the findings, including a commitment to issue new editorial guidance dealing with the use of narrators, as well as the translation of the Arabic word “Yehudi” literally as “Jews”, rather than “Zionists” or “Israelis.
Seemingly addressing calls from some Jewish groups for those involved in the production at a senior level to be sacked, a BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC is taking fair, clear and appropriate action, based on the findings, to ensure accountability. We will not comment further on any individual confidential processes.”
Offering its response to the report, a spokesperson for Hoyo Films added: “We take the findings in Peter Johnston’s report on Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone extremely seriously and apologise for the mistake that resulted in a breach of the Editorial Guidelines.
"We are pleased that the report found that there was no evidence of inappropriate influence on the content of the documentary from any third party.
"We appreciate the rigorous nature of this investigation, and its findings that HOYO Films did not intentionally mislead the BBC, that there were no other breaches of the Editorial Guidelines in the programme, and that there was no evidence to suggest that the programme funds were spent other than for reasonable, production-related purposes.”
And they even indicated that a version of the film could be shown again, saying: “We are working closely with the BBC to see if we can find an appropriate way to bring back to iPlayer the stories of those featured in the programme.”
The BBC itself also appeared to raise this prospect, saying: “Given the serious editorial breach identified in the production of Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, we do not think it is appropriate to reinstate the programme in its current form to iPlayer.
"However, as we said at the time, it is important to tell the story of what is happening in Gaza...We remain keen to tell the stories of those featured in the documentary and will now explore the possibility of doing this through re-edited and re-versioned shorter films for archive on iPlayer.”
Finally, the BBC did not rule out working with Hoyo again, but said that it has “has no current or future planned commissions” with the company.
Danny Cohen, the former director of television at the BBC, told the JC: “The serious journalistic failings of this documentary have severely damaged public trust in the BBC.
"The BBC's failure to recognise this and take real action is a serious leadership failure. This looks like a classic case of 'deputy heads must roll' and that is nowhere near good enough.
"Head of news Deborah Turness has questions to answer.”
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