BBC's Gaza documentary narrated by Hamas official's son breaches editorial guidelines, report finds

On February 17, 2025, the BBC broadcast the program, which was narrated by Abdullah Al-Yazouri, then 13, living in Gaza. Media outlets soon revealed that the father of the boy is Ayman Alyazouri, a deputy minister in the Hamas government, sparking the BBC to announce a report into the matter.

The report was headed by Peter Johnston, the BBC’s director of editorial complaints and reviews, and investigates the documentary into the decision to air and then pull a documentary about children’s lives in Gaza. It is the culmination of a “detailed and rigorous exercise” including the review of more than 5,000 documents, 10 interviews, and an editorial review of over 150 hours of production footage.

The breach in question is of Guideline 3.3.17 on accuracy, which deals with misleading audiences. The report finds that the audience should have been informed of the narrator’s father’s role. However, it found this to be the only breach of editorial guidelines in the program.

One key finding of the report is that the “critical information” regarding the identity of the narrator’s father was known by three members of the Hoyo Production Company, “but not anyone within the BBC.”

“The BBC only became aware of the narrator’s father’s position as deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government in Gaza after broadcast of the program.”

Because of this, the report finds Hoyo to be the most responsible for the failure, due to it not bringing the information to the BBC’s attention. However, it said it does not find that the production company intentionally misled the BBC and that it was a mistake.

While the BBC was not aware of the father’s identity, the report claims that the BBC bears responsibility for not doing its due diligence in the early phase of the project and by falling short in terms of critical oversight.

The report decided that none of the actual content of the program breached the BBC’s standards.

In terms of the child narrator, the report stated “to have a child as a narrator requires careful” and that in this case “the narrator was put in a position where his narration had to be highly scripted (meaning there was a limited portrayal of his background, story and life) and where he had to carry the rights-of-reply of others, in particular the IDF.”

“In light of what the production company knew about the narrator’s family and background, putting him forward as the voice of the program as it was scripted was wrong in my view.”

In terms of other accusations of impartiality and bias in the program, Johnson found no issues.

This is interesting, given it was highlighted that the program translated the Arabic words Yahud, meaning “Jews,” as “Israel” or “Israeli forces” or simply removed the words from the subtitles.

In another interview, a Gazan woman is subtitled as saying October 7 was the “first time we invaded Israel – it was always the other way around,” but in Arabic she actually said, “We were invading the Jews for the first time.”

The report however says “people in Gaza often use the word ‘Yahud’ when referring to the actions of the IDF, the Israeli state or Israeli citizens. Given the context of the program – people speaking colloquial Palestinian Arabic and describing the actions of the IDF or referring to Israel or Israelis – the prospect they meant to refer to Jewish people as a whole seems limited. Translating a contributor’s words to give the impression they meant to refer to Jewish people generally would therefore also risk misleading audiences.

“In terms of existing guidance, the BBC News Style Guide already urges caution on this point, noting: ‘Be careful over whether you mean ‘Israeli’ or ‘Jewish’: the latter might imply that the story is about ethnicity or religion, rather than the actions of the state or its citizens.’”

However, the Johnson report nevertheless recommends that the default position of program makers should be to translate these words literally (i.e. “Yahud” to be translated as “Jews”) and explain the local language context to the audience if that is possible.

Following the publication of the report, BBC director-general Tim Davie said, “A significant failing [had been identified] in relation to accuracy in this documentary” and that the BBC “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.”

Hoyo Films said “We take the findings [...] extremely seriously and apologize for the mistake that resulted in a breach of the (BBC) 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 program, and that there was no evidence to suggest that the program funds were spent other than for reasonable, production-related purposes.”

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said she was pleased to see acknowledgment “about what a catastrophic failure this has been” and that the BBC has recognized that “accountability and action [have been] “too slow in coming.”