People have come together outside the BBC’s London base to show their disagreement with the Corporation’s choice to allocate over £400,000 for a documentary about Gaza that is narrated by the son of a high-ranking Hamas official.
The controversy surrounding the BBC’s documentary called Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone extended to the streets of London when protestors against Hamas gathered outside Broadcasting House on Portland Place on Tuesday evening.
Several police vans and many police officers were on-site near the main entrance of the broadcaster’s London headquarters. The central square was blocked off to prevent protesters from reaching the building’s main entrance.
Those in attendance chanted ‘terrorist supporters off our screens’ and ‘Hamas are terrorists, say the words’, as well as accusing the corporation of ‘deliberate bias’.
The BBC was forced to issue an apology last week and pull the programme from its iPlayer service after it emerged the son of a Hamas minister featured prominently.
Abdullah al-Yazouri, the documentary’s 14-year-old narrator and central figure, was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, the deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government.
The row over the controversial programme deepened on Monday after it was revealed the Corporation paid London-based Hoyo Films an eye-watering £400,000 to make the film.
And campaigners became further enraged today after one of the documentary’s cameramen was accused of posting tweets that praised the October 7 massacre.
The row over the BBC’s documentary, Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, spilled on to the streets of the capital as anti-Hamas protesters arrived outside Broadcasting House in Portland Place, London
Those in attendance chanted ‘Terrorist supporters off our screens’ and ‘Hamas are terrorists, say the words’, as well as accusing the corporation of ‘deliberate bias’
The row over the BBC’S Gaza documentary deepened on Monday after it emerged the corporation spent £400,000 on the controversial film. Abdullah al-Yazouri (pictured), the documentary’s 14-year-old narrator, was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, the deputy minister of agriculture in the Hamas-run government.
A spokesperson for the charity behind the London protest, The Campaign Against Anti-semitism, said it was ‘finally time for transparency and accountability’ over the BBC’s ‘whitewashing of terrorism’.
Addressing the crowd, Gideon Falter, the chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, led chants of ‘shame, shame, shame’ directed at Broadcasting House.
He added that people had had ‘enough after 16 months of impartiality’ where the BBC ‘gets to mark its own homework’.
He said: ‘We have had enough of the BBC preaching its truth.’
Protest attendee Cheryl Kaye, from North London, said the corporation’s director general Tim Davie should be addressing the crowd.
She said: ‘I’m shocked that he hasn’t given this community the courtesy of a conversation.’
Annie Keen from Shenley in Hertfordshire, said the revelations about the documentary made her ‘feel sick’.
The 71-year-old said: ‘I had to be here to peacefully explain to the BBC that there are ways in which they can verify information which one of our members did. It took him literally minutes to Google who he was.’
The central plaza to the to the broadcaster’s London HQ was cordoned off so protesters could not reach the main entrance
The huge sum was paid to London-based Hoyo Films which was behind the documentary called Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone
The BBC’s cameraman is said to have ‘glorified’ the October 7 massacre in its new controversial documentary. Hatem Rawagh (pictured) praised the terror attack and the killing of Israelis
While another of Mr Rawagh’s posts shared celebrations at the Omari mosque in Gaza in April 2023 after a car attack in Tel Aviv which saw an Italian tourist dead and seven others injured
The BBC was forced to issue an apology and pull the programme from its iPlayer service after it emerged the son of a Hamas minister featured prominently
The decision to pull the programme came after the Hamas connection was revealed by an antisemitism researcher, David Collier, last Tuesday.
Ms Keen added that antisemitism had become ‘unfortunately endemic’ in society.
She said: ‘My daughter now lives in Israel. She moved in August to get away from the antisemitism here. She’s didn’t feel safe and she lived in a largely Jewish area.’
Another attendee said: ‘The BBC has lost the trust of a lot of Jewish people across the country.’
One protester calling out ‘will this be on the 10 o’clock news?’ was met with laughter from the crowd.
David Collier, the journalist who revealed the Hamas connection to the documentary, said: ‘We want to know exactly what has gone wrong inside BBC, how the documentary was produced, why it was even commissioned, and who inside that building is responsible for the blatant one-sided, anti-Israel junk that the BBC produces day in and day out.’
He added: ‘This time, we want full transparency, and we want it public. Those inside these offices, behind me, who have helped spread the cancer of anti-semitism can no longer be allowed to work there. We will accept nothing less.’
Michael Marlowe, the father of Jake Marlowe, who was killed on October 7th, said: ‘Once a pillar of credibility, the BBC has become a national embarrassment, bloated, blinkered, out of touch, anything but neutral.’
A spokesperson for the charity behind the London protest, The Campaign Against Anti-semitism, said it was ‘finally time for transparency and accountability’ over the BBC’s ‘whitewashing of terrorism’
One of the protestors who attended the protest outside the BBC’s London headquarters
The Campaign Against Antisemitism also expressed outrage over the broadcaster’s coverage of Hamas handing over the remains of killed hostages, claiming that the BBC had made omissions in its reporting.
Reports had not shown Hamas’s antisemitic portrayals of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a blood-sucking vampire and had not adequately reported that coffins holding dead hostages were labelled ‘date of arrest: 7th October 2023’, according to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism.
The family connection at the heart of the documentary row had not been made clear when the documentary was first aired on BBC 2 last Monday.
It later emerged another child in the film was the daughter of a former captain in the Hamas-run police force, while a third child was pictured posing with Hamas fighters.
The BBC did not offer a comment on the protest when approached by MailOnline, but previously commented on the documentary and said: ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone features important stories we think should be told – those of the experiences of children in Gaza.
‘There have been continuing questions raised about the programme and in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place.’
