BBC statement about Gaza: Doctors Under Attack
BBC News is determined to report all aspects of the conflict in the Middle East impartially and fairly. Over a year ago we commissioned Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, a documentary about the plight of medics in Gaza, from an independent production company, Basement Films.
We paused production of this film in April, having made a decision that we could not broadcast the film while a review into a separate Gaza documentary was ongoing. With both films coming from independent production companies, and both about Gaza, it was right to wait for any relevant findings – and put them into action – before broadcasting the film.
However, we wanted the doctors' voices to be heard. Our aim was to find a way to air some of the material in our news programmes, in line with our impartiality standards, before the review was published.
For some weeks, the BBC has been working with Basement Films to find a way to tell the stories of these doctors on our platforms.
Yesterday it became apparent that we have reached the end of the road with these discussions. 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.
Therefore, we are transferring ownership of the film material to Basement Films.
Contrary to some reports, since we paused production of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack in April, it has not undergone the BBC's final pre-broadcast sign-off processes. Any film broadcast will not be a BBC film.
The BBC has produced powerful coverage of this conflict. Alongside breaking news and ongoing analysis, we have produced award winning documentaries such as Life and Death in Gaza, and Gaza 101. We have also investigated allegations of abuse of Palestinian prisoners and Israel's attacks on Gaza's hospitals. Just today we are running a powerful piece of longform journalism that captures the final two weeks inside a Gaza hospital before it was forced to close.
We want to thank the doctors and contributors and we are sorry we could not tell their stories. The BBC will continue to cover events in Gaza impartially.
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North Wales Chronicle
27 minutes ago
- North Wales Chronicle
BBC will not broadcast Gaza documentary over ‘perception of partiality' risk
The corporation commissioned Gaza: Doctors Under Attack more than a year ago from an independent production company called Basement Films. The documentary includes witness accounts from frontline Palestinian health workers in Gaza and documents attacks on hospitals and clinics. It was delayed by the BBC until an ongoing review into a different programme in the region was completed. The BBC pulled the documentary How To Survive A Warzone in February after it emerged that its 13-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official. The corporation has now confirmed that Gaza: Doctors Under Attack will not air on the BBC at all. In a statement, the BBC said they had paused production of this film in April, having made a decision that they could not broadcast the film while a review into a separate Gaza documentary was ongoing. The BBC said that with both films coming from independent production companies, and both about Gaza, it was right to wait for any relevant findings – and put them into action – before broadcasting the film. 'However, we wanted the doctors' voices to be heard. Our aim was to find a way to air some of the material in our news programmes, in line with our impartiality standards, before the review was published. 'For some weeks, the BBC has been working with Basement Films to find a way to tell the stories of these doctors on our platforms. 'Yesterday, it became apparent that we have reached the end of the road with these discussions. '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. 'Therefore, we are transferring ownership of the film material to Basement Films. 'Contrary to some reports, since we paused production of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack in April, it has not undergone the BBC's final pre-broadcast sign-off processes. 'Any film broadcast will not be a BBC film,' the BBC said. The corporation added: 'We want to thank the doctors and contributors and we are sorry we could not tell their stories. The BBC will continue to cover events in Gaza impartially.' Last month, Oscar-winning actress Susan Sarandon and comedian Frankie Boyle were among hundreds of signatories calling on the BBC to air the documentary. The letter, signed by figures from across the film, TV, journalism and cultural sectors, was sent on behalf of the UK Screen Industry, made up of a 'group of concerned film and TV professionals'. Earlier this month, the BBC defended its coverage of the war in Gaza, after the White House criticised its reporting of an apparent incident in the territory, which reportedly left a number of people dead. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed the corporation, after updating an article's headline with new information, had to 'correct and take down' its story about fatalities and injuries following a reported incident near an aid distribution centre in Rafah. The BBC said it had not removed its story and explained that its headlines about the incident were 'updated throughout the day with the latest fatality figures as they came in from various sources', which is 'totally normal practice'.
Telegraph
36 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Britain tells Iran to stop funding proxies or face Trump strikes
Iran has been told to stop funding its proxies, end its nuclear programme, and limit manufacturing ballistic missiles in exchange for a deal to halt Donald Trump's plans for military strikes. The proposition was tabled by Britain, France and Germany at face-to-face talks with Tehran's foreign minister on Friday, after the US president set a two-week deadline for a diplomatic solution. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, appeared to set out details of the offer ahead of the discussions in Geneva, Switzerland. 'Iran must show that it is willing to join the platform for negotiations we are putting on the table,' he told reporters on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget. 'It is essential to prioritise a return to substantive negotiations, which include nuclear – to move to zero enrichment (by Iran of uranium) – ballistics, to limit Iranian capacities, and the financing of all the terrorist groups that destabilise the region,' he added. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, was joined by his French and German counterparts, as well as the EU's top diplomat, for the talks with Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, at the InterContinental hotel. The European offer on the table would see Iran's regime protected in exchange with open access for the UN's atomic watchdog to its nuclear sites, to ensure uranium enrichment is halted. The second and third elements would grant international oversight to the Islamic Republic's ballistic missiles programme and its funding of proxies, including Hamas and Hezbollah. And a fourth aspect would see the release of foreign nationals held hostage in Iranian jails. The talks lasted more than two hours, with Iranian state media claiming that a short pause in the discussions was taken for 'internal consultations' by the Europeans. Speaking after the talks, Mr Lammy urged Iran to return to the negotiating table with the US as soon as possible. The Foreign Secretary told reporters: 'We were clear Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and the e3 and Europe has been clear for many years that that cannot happen. 'We are keen to continue ongoing discussions and negotiations with Iran, and we urge Iran to continue their talks with the United States. This is a perilous moment, and it is hugely important that we don't see regional escalation of this conflict, and indeed the issues that that would cause for all of us, but also for people at home worried about cost of living at this time.' But he, and his French, Germany and EU counterparts, dodged any questions over whether the talks with the Iranian minister had brought about any progress. The Foreign Secretary had flown into Geneva overnight from Washington, where he had been meeting Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and Steve Witkoff, Mr Trump's diplomatic envoy. 'We are determined that Iran must never have a nuclear weapon,' Mr Lammy wrote online late on Thursday. He added: 'We discussed how a deal could avoid a deepening conflict. A window now exists within the next two weeks to achieve a diplomatic solution.' Jean-Noel Barrot, the French foreign minister, said the talks in Geneva would be used 'to make a complete diplomatic and technical offer for negotiations'. The two-week window was granted by Mr Trump, amid reports that he had signed off on plans for US bombers to strike Iran as early as Saturday. It also came as European officials warned their counterparts in the White House that any attack could imperil the lives of Western hostages held by Tehran and unleash a wave of terror by the Islamic regime's proxies. As well as a scramble to broker a diplomatic solution to the mounting crisis, the reprieve triggered Iran to rush to export as much oil as possible, amid fears a wider war could result in the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The increase in exports by Tehran could suggest that it is preparing for an escalation in the conflict. Ahead of the talks on Friday, Mr Araghchi told a UN meeting that Israel's attacks on its nuclear facilities had scuppered 'a very promising agreement' between Tehran and Washington. 'We were attacked in the midst of an ongoing diplomatic process,' he said. Iran's top diplomat also claimed his country would not engage in negotiations with the US as long as Israel's bombing campaign continued. 'Americans want to negotiate and have sent messages several times, but we clearly said that as long as this aggression doesn't stop, there's no place for talk of dialogue,' he told state television. But Daniel Meron, Israel's ambassador to the UN, slammed the decision to allow Mr Araghchi to speak to the organisation's Human Rights Council as a 'blatant betrayal of the many victims of this regime worldwide'. As the talks progressed in Switzerland, Iran claimed it had arrested a 'European spy' on suspicion of espionage. 'He had been visiting the country as a tourist at the time of the brutal attack by the Zionist regime,' the Tasnim news agency reported, without releasing his name, age or nationality. The Islamic regime claimed to have arrested dozens of foreigners accused of spying since its war with Israel broke out. The use of trumped-up espionage charges is a tactic frequently deployed by Tehran to detain Westerners or dual nationals for leverage in negotiations. Risk of 'a very high release of radioactivity' In a sign of increased hostilities, the UK announced it would withdraw its embassy staff from Iran and arrange charter flights to evacuate British nationals from Israel. 'Due to the current security situation, we have taken the precautionary measure to temporarily withdraw our UK staff from Iran. Our embassy continues to operate remotely,' the Foreign Office said in a statement. Mr Lammy said the evacuation flights would take off from Tel Aviv as soon as the Jewish state's airspace was reopened. Meanwhile, at the UN Security Council in New York, Rafael Grossi, the head of its nuclear watchdog, said strikes on Iran's Bushehr plant could trigger ' a very high release of radioactivity '. He also claimed his agency had not witnessed any damage to Fordow, Iran's underground enrichment plant, but that strikes on Natanz by Israel had been ' seriously damaging '.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
The Corbynista activist behind the militant pro-Palestinian group that targeted an RAF base
In 2016, Huda Ammori experienced a political awakening. She'd had a call from her mother, urging her to join the Labour Party. 'Coming from my Iraqi mother, this was quite confusing given that Tony Blair, under the Labour government, led the invasion and destruction of Iraq.' But for pro-Palestine activists, change was in the air on the left. 'The renewal of hope was alive, with Jeremy Corbyn, a committed anti-imperialist activist and politician, elected as leader of the Labour Party,' she wrote in The New Arab, a London-based Arab news outlet, in 2022. Corbyn's Labour presented an opportunity as 'the most promising and frankly the only avenue of implementing an embargo [on Israel] through political parties'. Now was the time to get a bigger platform for their message via the opposition benches. 'Many of us fought long and hard for [an arms embargo] by passing motions, speaking at Labour meetings, lobbying several MPs, and in 2018 the Labour conference voted to sanction and freeze all arms sales to and from Israel.' Then came Corbyn's defenestration after the 2019 election, and with it an end to their direct line to Westminster. 'The options for implementing social and environmental justice through the political system were non-existent,' she said. Left out in the cold while the embers of Corbyn's Labour were snuffed out, she co-founded a new movement, an activist group modelled on Extinction Rebellion, called Palestine Action. 'From the black hole of politics, a new light through direct action and grassroots mobilisation took its place', she wrote. It was time to stop 'asking and begging' the government, she said. Instead, they'd use 'our own bodies'. 'For me, the option is clear, my only regret is not seeing it sooner.' And so, as Jeremy Corbyn's vision for Britain's left died, a new militant movement was born. In the five years since, the group has gone from ram-raiding factories and vandalising buildings to last night causing a major security breach when two of its members broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military planes. Video footage shows two people on electric scooters shooting over the runway towards a Voyager – a so-called 'petrol station in the sky' used to refuel midair and to transport prime ministers and members of the Royal family. In an attack that has raised serious questions about the security at Britain's largest RAF station, the group seem to have managed to escape undetected after attacking two planes with crowbars and repurposed fire extinguishers. In the video, you can hear the splutter of spray paint as they fire red paint into the plane's engines. On Friday, it emerged that counter-terror police were leading the investigation into the incident. Shortly afterwards, the BBC reported that Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, was preparing to proscribe Palestine Action, which would make membership of the group illegal. It comes after the group – whose militant actions have already seen several of its members arrested or jailed – warned it would be escalating its activities. Palestine Action was co-founded in 2020 by Ammori, now 31, a former campaigner at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Richard Barnard, 51, a former member of Extinction Rebellion. Ammori, from Bolton, was born to a Palestinian father, a surgeon, and Iraqi mother and studied international business and finance at the University of Manchester. Her great-grandfather was, according to an interview the pair gave with the magazine Prospect last year, involved in the 1936 uprising and killed by British soldiers. Barnard was raised Catholic and once belonged to a Christian anarchist group called the Catholic Worker. He has almost 30 tattoos, the magazine reports, including Benedictine mottos, Buddhist chants, an Irish Republican slogan, 'freedom' in Arabic, 77 in Roman numerals and 'all cops are bastards'. S ince 2020, the group has claimed responsibility for more than 300 incidents at universities, government buildings, British-based defence and engineering firms, banks and insurance companies. Among the group's members are artists, musicians and dancers. Its website bears profiles of the people (most of them young) who have been imprisoned on behalf of Palestine Action. One of the group's most prolific activists is Audrey Xiarui Corno, 22, a dancer who studies at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in Belsize Park, north London. Corno teamed up with Youth Demand, an organisation consisting of different pro-Palestinian and environmentalist groups, to spray red paint over the Ministry of Defence headquarters in Whitehall in April 2024. She and other protesters were also arrested after occupying GRiD Defence Systems, a firm near High Wycombe which they claimed supplies arms to Israel, in June last year. Corno, whose Instagram account is filled with rainbow emojis and personal pronouns, was released from prison earlier this month after being on remand for two months for the GRiD incident. A recent post on her account's story showed a group of her friends, many wearing keffiyehs, outside Aylesbury Crown Court holding up their middle fingers towards the building. The group has hardly been discreet about its intentions. Amid the protests that followed the October 7 attacks, it emerged that Palestine Action had published an 'Underground Manual', a start-to-finish guide for their followers on how to conduct 'an action', on its website. The pamphlet was still on their website last year, and much of the advice would, it seems, have been useful to the pair who managed to get into Brize Norton. The first step, the manual says, is to 'create a cell'. Next, you are to 'pick a target'. 'Head to our website to find a list of secondary and primary targets who enable and profit from the Israeli weapons industry in Britain. Making your job to pick one a slightly easier process!' comes the cheerful instruction. Then you are to 'prepare for action'. Recces of the site you plan to hit are 'vital'. You should assess the security, the CCTV, the surroundings, any police patrols. Then it's a case of working out how to arrive and leave undetected, all while 'documenting your action'. When the manual was uncovered, the then policing minister Chris Philp (now shadow home secretary) warned the group was encouraging activists to 'smash up businesses with sledgehammers' and said he would personally report the group to the authorities. Lord Walney, then the Government's independent adviser on political violence and disruption, said the manual would become an important 'test case' of the police's willingness to take action against 'pernicious militants'. In 2022, the Jewish Chronicle went undercover at a Palestine Action meeting where activists discussed an attack that had taken place on a property in Oldham used by the Israel-based defence firm Elbit Systems, the group's main target. At the meeting, the paper reported, 'they set out their secret plans for a nationwide wave of mayhem and destruction'. 'Sporting an Arabic tattoo across his neck, Mr Barnard explained what was coming,' the paper reported. 'A sustained, intense series of 'direct actions' against Elbit offices was the objective. And as for tactics, think extreme. 'Activists could lock themselves under vans and break into factories to cause 'high-level damage' to machinery.' Advice, the paper said, was offered on how to cope with being arrested, including an instruction to wear old shoes. 'A person standing at the front backed this up by saying that the worst part about being arrested at a previous action had been the confiscation of their vegan leather Doc Martens.' After the Oct 7 2023 attacks, Barnard urged activists to 'smash Israeli weapons factories'. He appeared in court in September last year on charges of encouraging criminal damage and expressing support for Hamas at two pro-Palestinian rallies in October 2023. He claims that the case 'is part of a wider intimidation campaign against Palestine Action, and a crackdown of the wider movement.' A fundraising page for his case, set up last year, states: 'My trial is scheduled to last one week from April 14th at Manchester Crown Court ... Pushing back against the state intimidation campaign at every opportunity is crucial to defending free speech on Palestine.' In April, Palestine Action said his trial had been delayed until March 2026. Analysis by The Sunday Times showed the number of incidents for which Palestine Action was responsible increased from 17 in 2020 to 170 in 2024. In the past year, the group has pledged to escalate action. In November, activists stole the wrong statue in a raid on Manchester University, mistaking a bust of a professor for that of Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel. Meanwhile, their rhetoric seems to have grown increasingly aggressive. Ammori was filmed speaking at a concert alongside the rapper Lowkey, a staunch Palestine Action supporter, in November. The rapper was criticised by Sir William Shawcross, whose independent review of the Prevent counterterrorism scheme alleged that his lyrics promoted 'what I regard to be an antisemitic conspiracy theory about the 'Zionist lobby''. At the concert, Ammori told a riled up crowd: 'We drive vans through their gates. We drive vans through their front doors. We occupy their rooms. We break inside and we destroy every single weapon.' Lowkey is one of the most foul racist extremists of all. Of late, his top cause is "Palestine Action", the nasty racist vandals. See him warmly welcome Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori at a wild hatred rally. "Intifada!" Artists who line up with him are a disgrace. — habibi (@habibi_uk) November 15, 2024 She continued: 'Let me tell you, anyone who works at Elbit Systems they are also a target.' The group has denounced Sir Keir Starmer, but its connection to Corbynista MPs persisted. In 2021, Ian Byrne, the 2019-intake Labour MP for Liverpool West Derby, spoke at the same event as Ammori. Later in 2021, John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, spoke at a protest alongside Ammori in Liverpool. In December 2024, McDonnell used a debate in Parliament to state: 'The last Government even came forward with proposals and discussions about proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. I hope this Government are not going anywhere near that.' He said that Palestine Action activists who had been arrested were 'young people, a lot of them young women—some of them just starting out at university. They exercised their influence and power because we failed to exercise ours.' Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside, also attended a protest alongside Ammori, against an electronic arms fair in her constituency. Today, the group's abiding message is to keep going at all costs. In an interview with the journal New Left Review in April, Ammori spoke of destabilising 'the Zionist project itself'. 'By being security-conscious and working in small groups, we can make it difficult for the authorities to respond to individual actions by targeting the movement as a whole – such that Palestine Action can continue to grow, even in hostile conditions.' In a statement emailed to The Telegraph, the group said: 'Under Section 1 of the Genocide Convention, Britain is obliged to prevent and punish the crime of genocide ... When our government fails to uphold their moral and legal obligations, it is the responsibility of ordinary citizens to take direct action. The terrorists are the ones committing a genocide, not those who break the tools used to commit it.' The Campaign Against Antisemitism expressed concern about the escalation of the group's activities in Britain. Like politicians such as Robert Jenrick and Nigel Farage, they think the time has come to proscribe it as a terror organisation. 'Palestine Action has escalated from vandalising corporate property to targeting Jewish businesses and charities, and now sabotaging RAF aircraft,' said a spokesperson for the Campaign Against Antisemitism. 'They've even staged grotesque mock beheadings and destroyed works of art. This is a group fuelled by hatred and driven by destruction. 'They deliberately spread fear, disrupt public life and attack the very institutions that keep this country safe. Their actions aren't just intimidatory – they're a direct assault on British values and democracy. 'The Home Secretary must act now and proscribe this dangerous organisation before it can harm or sabotage further. We have provided her with the relevant background and legal case for a ban. There is no time to lose.'
