Hamas politicians and its military wing are not the same, BBC News chief says
The BBC's Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after it emerged that the child narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture.
It is understood Deborah Turness made the comments when she was asked about the documentary during a routine staff meeting.
A video appears to show Ms Turness saying: 'I think it's really important that we are clear that (the narrator) Abdullah's father was the deputy agricultural minister and therefore, you know, was a member of the Hamas-run government, which is different to being part of the military wing of Hamas.
'And I think externally it's often simplified that he was in Hamas, and I think it's an important point of detail that we need to continually remind people of the difference and of that connection.'
Hamas's military wing was proscribed in 2001 and that was extended in 2021 to include its political wing.
After Ms Turness's comments were reported, a BBC spokesperson said: 'The BBC constantly makes clear on our programmes and platforms that Hamas are a proscribed terrorist organisation by the UK Government and others.
'We are also clear that we need to describe to our audiences the complexities of life in Gaza, including within the structure of Hamas, which has run the civilian functions of Gaza.'
They added: 'Deborah Turness was answering a question about how we described the father of the narrator in our Warzone film.
'She did not imply that Hamas are not a single terrorist organisation.
'As we have said, there was an editorial breach in this film, and we are sorry. We will not show the film again in its current form and we should not have used this child as the narrator.'
Ofcom announced on Monday that it will investigate the documentary after an external review found the programme had breached the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.
The review, conducted by Peter Johnston, the director of editorial complaints and reviews, which is independent of BBC News, said the programme was in breach of accuracy for 'failing to disclose information about the child narrator's father's position within the Hamas-run government'.
It found no other breaches of editorial guidelines, including breaches of impartiality, and also found no evidence that outside interests 'inappropriately impacted on the programme'.
The report said that 'careful consideration of the requirements of due impartiality was undertaken in this project given the highly contested nature of the subject matter'.
Ofcom said it had examined the BBC report and would be investigating under its broadcasting code, which states that factual programmes 'must not materially mislead the audience'.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: 'Having examined the BBC's findings, we are launching an investigation under our rule which states that factual programmes must not materially mislead the audience.'
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