The British government on Friday called for an urgent meeting with the BBC following the airing of a controversial documentary about children in Gaza, narrated by the 13-year-old son of a Hamas leader, Reuters reported.
The documentary, “Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone”, produced by an independent company, was removed from the BBC’s online platform just five days after its broadcast.
The BBC had come under fire after online commentators pointed out that the documentary’s narrator was the son of Ayman al-Yazouri, the deputy minister of agriculture in Hamas' Gaza government.
The BBC acknowledged on Thursday that there were “serious flaws” in the program. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer later said he is "concerned" by the documentary.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, announcing Friday’s meeting with BBC Chair Samir Shah, stated, “I want assurances that no stone will be left unturned.” The BBC has pledged to conduct a full fact-finding review and refer the matter to its editorial complaints unit.
The BBC has repeatedly been criticized for the blatant anti-Israel bias in its reporting. This criticism has increased since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the war in Gaza which followed.
In November of 2023, the corporation published an apology after falsely claiming that IDF troops were targeting medical teams in battles in and around the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
Before that, the BBC falsely accused Israel of being responsible for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, which the IDF proved was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket.
The network later acknowledged that “it was false to speculate” on the explosion.
In August, more than 200 people from Britain's TV and film industry called for an urgent investigation into allegations of antisemitism at the BBC.
A month later, a report found that the BBC violated its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the first four months of the war between Israel and Hamas, and noted “deeply worrying pattern of bias" against the Jewish state during that period.
Just a few weeks ago, BBC News presenter Nicky Shiller referred to three hostages who were released by Hamas as “prisoners”, similar to the term used for the terrorists imprisoned in Israel.
His remarks sparked an uproar, leading the network to apologize.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)