A review finds a BBC Gaza documentary breached editorial guidelines
The broadcaster removed the program, 'Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone,' from its streaming service in February after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture.
A review found that the independent production company that made the program did not share the background information regarding the narrator's father with the BBC. It said that the production company, Hoyo Films, bears most responsibility for the failure, though it did not 'intentionally' mislead the BBC.
The review, conducted by the corporation's director of editorial complaints and reviews, found no other breaches of editorial guidelines, including impartiality. There was no evidence of 'outside interests' impacting on the program, it said.
Earlier this year, Britain's Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy questioned why no one at the BBC had lost their job over the program's airing.
The broadcaster's Director-General Tim Davie had told lawmakers that the BBC received hundreds of complaints alleging that the documentary was biased against Israel, as well as hundreds more criticizing the program's removal from its streaming service.
Davie said Monday that the report identified 'a significant failing' in relation to accuracy in the documentary. Hoyo Films apologized for the mistake. Both firms said they would prevent similar errors in the future.
Separately, more than 100 BBC journalists wrote a letter to Davie earlier this month criticizing its decision not to air another documentary, 'Gaza: Medics Under Fire." They expressed concerns that the broadcaster was not reporting ''without fear or favour' when it comes to Israel."
The decision suggested that the BBC was an 'organization that is crippled by the fear of being perceived as critical of the Israeli government,' that letter said.
The BBC has been under intense scrutiny for its coverage touching on the war in Gaza. Last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and others condemned the corporation for livestreaming a performance by rap punk duo Bob Vylan, who led crowds at Glastonbury Festival in chanting 'death' to the Israeli military.
The 21-month Israel-Hamas war started after the militant group attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Most of the hostages have been released in earlier ceasefires. Israel's offensive in Gaza has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The ministry, under Gaza's Hamas-run government, doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The U.N. and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.
Follow 's war coverage at /hub/israel-hamas-war
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hindu
29 minutes ago
- The Hindu
Will target all ships linked to Israel, say Yemen's Houthis
The rebel Houthi group in Yemen has said it will target merchant ships belonging to any company that does business with Israeli ports, regardless of nationality, as part of what it described as the next phase of its operations against Israel. The Iran-backed Houthis launched a campaign targeting merchant vessels in response to the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, saying they were doing so in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Their attacks over the past two years have upended shipping in the Red Sea, through which $1 trillion of goods usually passes each year. In an announcement late Sunday (July 27, 2025) night, the Houthis said they had 'decided to escalate their military support operations and begin implementing the fourth phase of the naval blockade' against Israel. They warned that they would target 'all ships belonging to any company that deals with the ports of the Israeli enemy, regardless of the nationality of that company, and in any location within the reach of our armed forces.' The vessels would be targeted regardless of their destination, they added. The group said countries should pressure Israel to stop the war in Gaza and lift its blockade on the Palestinian territory 'if they want to avoid this escalation.' Earlier this month, the Houthis attacked and sank two Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned bulk carriers – the Magic Seas and the Eternity C. The attack on the latter left four crew members dead and 11 more were taken captive, while all 22 crew members of the Magic Seas were rescued before the ship sank. From November 2023 to December 2024, the Houthis targeted more than 100 ships with missiles and drones. The rebels stopped their attacks during a brief ceasefire in the war and later became the target of an intense, weekslong airstrike campaign ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump. In May, the U.S. announced a deal with the Houthis to end the airstrikes in return for an end to shipping attacks, although the rebel group said the agreement did not include halting attacks on targets it believed were aligned with Israel.
Indian Express
an hour ago
- Indian Express
What to expect, and what not to, at the UN meeting on an Israel-Palestinian two-state solution
The UN General Assembly is bringing high-level officials together this week to promote a two-state solution to the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict that would place their peoples side by side, living in peace in independent nations. Israel and its close ally the United States are boycotting the two-day meeting, which starts Monday and will be co-chaired by the foreign ministers of France and Saudi Arabia. Israel's right-wing government opposes a two-state solution, and the United States has called the meeting 'counterproductive' to its efforts to end the war in Gaza. France and Saudi Arabia want the meeting to put a spotlight on the two-state solution, which they view as the only viable road map to peace, and to start addressing the steps to get there. The meeting was postponed from late June and downgraded from a four-day meeting of world leaders amid surging tensions in the Middle East, including Israel's 12-day war against Iran and the war in Gaza. 'It was absolutely necessary to restart a political process, the two-state solution process, that is today threatened, more threatened than it has ever been,' French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Sunday on CBS News' Face the Nation. The idea of dividing the Holy Land goes back decades. When the British mandate over Palestine ended, the UN partition plan in 1947 envisioned dividing the territory into Jewish and Arab states. Israel accepted the plan, but upon Israel's declaration of independence the following year, its Arab neighbours declared war and the plan was never implemented. Under a 1949 armistice, Jordan held control over the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Egypt over Gaza. Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians seek those lands for a future independent state alongside Israel, and this idea of a two-state solution based on Israel's pre-1967 boundaries has been the basis of peace talks dating back to the 1990s. The two-state solution has wide international support. The logic behind it is that the population of Israel — along with East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — is divided equally between Jews and Palestinians. The establishment of an independent Palestine would leave Israel as a democratic country with a solid Jewish majority and grant the Palestinians their dream of self-determination. France and Saudi Arabia have said they want to put a spotlight on the two-state solution as the only viable path to peace in the Middle East — and they want to see a road map with specific steps, first ending the war in Gaza. The co-chairs said in a document sent to UN members in May that the primary goal of the meeting is to identify actions by 'all relevant actors' to implement the two-state solution — and 'to urgently mobilise the necessary efforts and resources to achieve this aim, through concrete and time-bound commitments'. Saudi diplomat Manal Radwan, who led the country's delegation to the preparatory conference, said the meeting must 'chart a course for action, not reflection'. It must be 'anchored in a credible and irreversible political plan that addresses the root cause of the conflict and offers a real path to peace, dignity and mutual security', she said. French President Emmanuel Macron has pushed for a broader movement towards a two-state solution in parallel with a recognition of Israel's right to defend itself. He announced late Thursday that France will recognise the state of Palestine officially at the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly in late September. About 145 countries have recognised the state of Palestine. But Macron's announcement, ahead of Monday's meeting and amid increasing global anger over desperately hungry people in Gaza starting to die from starvation, makes France the most important Western power to do so. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the two-state solution on both nationalistic and security grounds. Netanyahu's religious and nationalist base views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people, while Israeli Jews overwhelmingly consider Jerusalem their eternal capital. The city's eastern side is home to Judaism's holiest site, along with major Christian and Muslim holy places. Hard-line Israelis like Netanyahu believe the Palestinians don't want peace, citing the second Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s, and more recently the Hamas takeover of Gaza two years after Israel withdrew from the territory in 2005. The Hamas takeover led to five wars, including the current and ongoing 21-month conflict. At the same time, Israel also opposes a one-state solution in which Jews could lose their majority. Netanyahu's preference seems to be the status quo, where Israel maintains overall control and Israelis have fuller rights than Palestinians, Israel deepens its control by expanding settlements, and the Palestinian Authority has limited autonomy in pockets of the West Bank. Netanyahu condemned Macron's announcement of Palestinian recognition, saying it 'rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as Gaza became'. The Palestinians, who label the current arrangement 'apartheid', accuse Israel of undermining repeated peace initiatives by deepening settlement construction in the West Bank and threatening annexation. That would harm the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state and their prospects for independence. Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee and close associate of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the meeting will serve as preparation for a presidential summit expected in September. It will take place either in France or at the UN on the sidelines of the high-level meeting, UN diplomats said. Majdalani said the Palestinians have several goals, first a 'serious international political process leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state'. The Palestinians also want additional international recognition of their state by major countries including Britain. But expect that to happen in September, not at Monday's meeting, Majdalani said. And he said they want economic and financial support for the Palestinian Authority and international support for the reconstruction and recovery of the Gaza Strip. All 193 UN member nations have been invited to attend the meeting and a French diplomat said about 40 ministers are expected. The United States and Israel are the only countries boycotting. The co-chairs have circulated an outcome document which could be adopted, and there could be some announcements of intentions to recognise a Palestinian state. But with Israel and the United States boycotting, there is no prospect of a breakthrough and the resumption of long-stalled negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on an end to their conflict. Secretary-General António Guterres urged participants after the meeting was announced 'to keep the two-state solution alive'. And he said the international community must not only support a solution where independent states of Palestine and Israel live side-by-side in peace but 'materialise the conditions to make it happen'.
Hindustan Times
an hour ago
- Hindustan Times
James Gunn's hilarious reaction to Trisha Paytas christening her son Aquaman — and what worries him about it!
Trisha Paytas knows how to make her kids stand out. James Gunn has a hilarious reaction (and some genuine concern) to Trisha Paytas naming her son Aquaman(Photos: Instagram, X) The internet celebrity has been making headlines for 3 years on the trot, owing to the truly unique names she has christened her kids with. Married to Israeli collaborative artist, designer and photographer Moses Hacmon, the couple welcomed their first child, a daughter, in September 2022 and rather ceremoniously named her Malibu Barbie Paytas-Hacmon. Yes, you read that right. Malibu's little sister came along in May 2024 and wowed the digital world with her very own head turning name, Elvis Paytas-Hacmon. Now if you think Trisha couldn't possibly top these two christenings with more creativity, on July 12, she welcomed her third child but first son, Aquaman Moses Paytas-Hacmon. Now between the three, this one sure seems to take the cake. Now while the internet cracks puns about their homegrown theory — that of Trisha's womb being some sort of soul portal for the reincarnation of supremely relevant historical figures — director James Gunn for one, has a very real concern to share, albeit of course, hilariously. When asked by Entertainment Tonight, if he had heard about Trisha naming her son Aquaman, he immediately exclaimed, "I saw that yes. I think that's cool! I mean". He was quick to voice his concern too but, adding, "I hope he does okay in school I mean, I had a hard time with the last name Gunn like Tommy Gunn, BB gun, raygun, I'm like, 'ok, we get it' ", which elicited a laugh from everyone. James was also very invested in the kid having a nickname of sorts so that he wouldn't have to be referred to as Aquaman all the time: "Are they going to call him AQ, what are they going to call him? Won't he get made fun of in school? Do kids make fun of kids anymore?", he asked cluelessly. Frank Grillo however, whom James only recently directed in Superman, had more faith in the situation than James, asserting, "He's going to be fine. Especially if he lives up in New York where I grew up, he'll be fine". Well, we wish little Aquaman a lot of love!
