Protest held outside BBC HQ over Gaza documentary

A protest has been held outside BBC headquarters after it emerged that a documentary on Gaza featured the son of a senior Hamas figure.

Demonstrators chanted, waved flags and listened to speeches from figures including actress Dame Maureen Lipman outside Broadcasting House in central London.

“We are gathering to tell the BBC: We refuse to fund terrorists with our licence fee,” organiser Campaign Against Antisemitism posted on X.

“Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen the BBC engulfed in scandal, following the broadcast of its so-called documentary… which was tantamount to a Hamas propaganda film.”

“Where is the balance?” Dame Maureen told the crowd. “As always, all I ask for is a level playing field.”

One placard at the protest read: “BBC, I refuse to fund terrorists.”

Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone was removed from BBC iPlayer after it emerged that the child narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.

The broadcaster has apologised for the making of the programme, about children living in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war, after conducting an initial review and it has now launched a further internal probe.

The BBC said it is “seeking additional assurance” from production company Hoyo Films after it admitted “they paid the boy’s mother, via his sister’s bank account, a limited sum of money for the narration”.

Other accusations have been made that parts of the documentary were mistranslated, and more children who appeared in it were linked to proscribed terrorist organisation Hamas.

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy accused the BBC of failing to show enough urgency in its review of the documentary.

But presenters Gary Lineker and Anita Rani, and actors Riz Ahmed and Miriam Margolyes, are among more than 500 media figures who condemned the withdrawal from iPlayer.