Are You a Spy or a Tourist?
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The BBC hid Hamas links and statements in a recent documentary about Gaza. Many are defending the film.
Subsidized by British taxpayers, the BBC has long been a byword for journalistic integrity and high standards. Shockingly, a recent BBC documentary about Gaza has been revealed as a mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda. Even more surprisingly, British artists and cultural figures are clamoring to defend the Hamas-inflected film.
On February 17, 2025, the BBC broadcast Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone to ecstatic reviews. Over a year in the making, it was, the BBC described, an “unflinching view of life in a warzone.”
Since “Israel does not allow foreign journalists to report independently in Gaza,” the BBC wrote in its promotional material - (Israel does allow foreign journalists into Gaza, though they must be embedded with Israeli troops) - the BBC contracted with “cameramen” inside Gaza. However, editorial decisions were made by producers in London.
Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone follows four people as they go about their daily routines during the past year. Here is the cast of characters:
A bright 13-year-old named Abdullah speaks directly to the camera, cheerfully cautioning the cameramen not to hurt themselves as they film him scampering over rubble. Like a Gazan Oliver Twist, he introduces the other characters and describes their lives and motivations. “I help out my family as best I can,” he confides after buying a few nuts in a market.
Zakharia is 11 and lives inside Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital, where he’s an indefatigable volunteer, rushing to the front of crowds of adult men to be the first to unload an ambulance, carrying patients to the operating room, and assisting doctors with a smile.
Renad is a 10-year-old girl with a mischievous smile. She’s lucky to still have her own home, Abdullah explains. She spends her days cooking over a camp stove on her building’s rooftop, substituting water for milk and making other adjustments to traditional recipes because she has little food in Gaza.
BBC failed to disclose that this boy is the son of a senior Hamas member who has been a child propogandist for year.
Rana is a young adult who lives with her family in a tent. She gave birth a month prematurely to a baby girl, whom she brought home to her displaced family.
The film does nothing to disguise its strongly anti-Israel tone. Hamas is notably absent from any scenes in the film. There are scores of scenes of terrified civilians fleeing or cowering in fear from what we’re told are Israeli bombs, yet not one single scene of Hamas fighters.
This omission is bizarre. Hamas’ use of human shields inside Gaza is well documented. NATO observes that “Hamas…has been using human shields in conflicts with Israel since 2007…. Hamas has launched rockets, positioned military-related infrastructure-hubs and routes, and engaged the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) from, or in proximity to, residential and commercial areas.”
In 2024 the Israeli military described how saturated Gaza is with Hamas fighters: “Hamas has systematically embedded its terror infrastructure inside and under civilian areas in Gaza as part of its human-shield strategy…. IDF troops discovered that most homes in Gaza have terror tunnels underneath or weapons caches inside, and the majority of schools, mosques, hospitals and international institutions have been used by Hamas for their military operations.”
Yet none of this appears in the BBC documentary. All civilian suffering is said to be the fault of Israelis. It’s not subtle: during terrible scenes of civilians running for cover, Abdullah explains that Israeli bombers and snipers decided to attack civilians for no reason. In one memorable scene, a British-accented surgeon working in Gaza amputates an arm, then holds it up for the camera, announcing “Look what the Israelis are doing to the children of Gaza.”
When British journalist David Collier watched the film, he recognized the four young people the documentary features from other British news outlets. In Abdullah’s case, Collier recognized him from previous BBC programs.
“Zakharia Sarsak (is) the young boy in the hospital,” Collier noted. “His story was all over the news in April 2024. The young mother is Rana Salah. Her story has also been all over the news for months. Ten-year-old Renad Attallah…has over a million followers on Instagram,” Collier found. “Her story has been all over the news for months.” Her family has also amassed hundreds of thousands of Euros in Go-Fund-Me donations over the past year. “It seems as if there are so few stories in Gaza, the BBC had to borrow targets from other channels,” Collier concluded.
When it came to Abdullah, the narrator, Collier found strange anomalies: the BBC featured him before (with a different name) in a previous program, and seemingly didn’t recognize him in this documentary. They also seemingly overlooked the fact that Abdullah is part of Hamas royalty.
Collier found a November 2023 BBC program featuring Abdullah and a man said to be his father. Digging through Abdullah’s family’s social media posts, Collier found that the BBC misidentified as his father a man named Khalil Abushammmala. Abushammala is director of Al Dameer, a political group in Gaza that’s closely aligned with the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He’s also Abdullah’s uncle. Abdullah’s real father is Dr. Ayman Al-Yazouri, a senior Hamas official.
This explains Abdullah’s frequent appearance on British TV: “Abdullah has been shaped as a child propagandist for years,” Collier concluded.
It’s inconceivable that BBC editors and producers would fail to spot that Abdullah had appeared in a previous program under a different name. Yet when they were presented with Collier’s research, that is what they claimed, saying they needed time to “conduc(t) further due diligence with the production company.”
The production company behind Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone is Hoyo Films, a company controlled by British filmmaker Jamie Roberts. Roberts hasn’t worked on anything related to Gaza before. For this documentary, he teamed up with Yousef D. Hammash, a Gaza native who moved to Britain in 2024 and a harsh critic of Israel.
The two cameramen they employed in Gaza are similarly predisposed to view Israel negatively. Cameraman Amjad Al Foyoumi posted a two-word phrase on Facebook - “The Flood” - Hamas’ name for its brutal October 7, 2023 attack on Israel - on October 6, 2023, the day before the attack. Cameraman Ibrahim Abu Ishaiba refers to Israel’s fight against Hamas as a “genocide.”
Given Hamas’ near-absolute power in Gaza, it should have been obvious to BBC officials that any documentary purporting to show life in the region would be carefully controlled by local officials and would have to adhere to Hamas’ narrative. Yet BBC producers turned a blind eye to this documentary, advertising it as a piece of independent journalism, when it was anything but.
Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone also contains lies in its translation of Arabic words and phrases. The British newspaper The Telegraph combed the film and found that references to terrorism, Hamas, antisemitism, and Jihad were systematically removed from the movie’s English subtitles.
“Jews” is mistranslated as “Israelis” or “Israeli forces.” “Jihad” is mistranslated as “battle” or “resistance.” For instance, towards the end of the film, Rana speaks lovingly of Hamas commander and October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar and says he “was engaging in resistance and jihad against the Jews.” The film mistranslates her words in its English subtitles as “he was fighting and resisting Israeli forces.”
Orly Goldschmidt, an Israeli official in Israel’s London Embassy, said these mistakes are “intentional mistranslations” and that “it reflects a very serious and systematic issue, which has taken root at the BBC.”
Facing mounting criticism, the BBC removed Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone from its BBC iPlayer on February 20, 2025. But the film remains easily accessible online.
This was the right move. This so-called documentary is a Hamas-designed piece of propaganda that distorts the facts of Israel’s war with Hamas. It whitewashes Hamas crimes, deceitfully and inaccurately portrays Israel’s self-defensive war as a series of unprovoked attacks on civilians, and omits any mention of Hamas’ crimes and use of human shields in Gaza.
Yet hundreds of British artists and cultural figures are clamoring for the BBC to restore this odious movie to the BBC’s iPlayer. On February 26, 2025, 500 prominent artists wrote to the BBC, calling the film “an essential piece of journalism.” The signatories asserted that criticisms of the movie are based on “racist assumptions and weaponisation of identity.”
Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone has already caused incalculable damage by promoting lies and anti-Israel hatred. If the BBC gives in to the current groundswell of calls to reinstate this dangerous movie, we all will be harmed by the lies and distortions it contains.
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The BBC is really terrible, and as a Zionist and a Brit I really resent having to pay them a licence fee just so that I can watch television. I never watch the Beeb (except for wild-life documentaries, which are usually excellent). But if I don't pay for my licence each year, I could be sent to jail!
"...the BBC has long been a byword for journalistic integrity and high standards".
Are you serious?
I'm 80 year old and can remember the Beeb from way back, when they just broadcast in black and white. Until the mid-sixties or thereabouts they were OK. But since that time they have been staffed by Marxists, Islamists and radicals of every antisemitic stripe, and it's so bad I can't watch any of their news or news documentaries now. A study that showed the Beeb's antisemitism was stifled, and despite millions of complaints they just carry on in this terrible vein.
The BBC has always been this way and it only got worse since David Attenborough loosed his Scottish Rite canons and Jewry stood there like deer in oncoming headlights for years before reacting. Add to that the addition of millions of Muslims to the British population—with Jews in the vanguard of the open borders movement in the UK—and Qatar paying for it all while Israel’s leaders and the IDF high command and Mossad reacting with a prolonged, “ ehhhhh”, “ehhhhh”. Don’t act surprised or outraged by the BBC.
How do you expect that this British outlet who USED to be stellar In it’s reporting is now in bed with this brutal faction called hamas you have to realize that England is overpopulated with Muslims which is now the fastest growing religion in the world and they obviously catered to them
Just a quick lesson in History England post WW2 wanted to continue to hold on to its protectorate in the region and made it impossible for Jews to immigrate to Israel the conflict today is the result of their failure to hold on to power in the Middle East and they obviously failed they used to call The British empire that the sun never sets on it and Now what a pathetic island called England
Brits (who are 1st cousins to the Germans, as in Anglo-Saxons) have long had an antisemitic streak; check out their history.
Especially during the British mandate of Palestine, they always favored the Arabs and looked away when the latter attacked Jews without provocation.
They've been appropriately "rewarded" with an influx of Arab / Muslim immigrants who will finish off the "empire" in due time because the only thing they're good at (besides bold-faced lies) is destruction.
I guess with all the Muslims taking over Europe Jews are making aliyah in droves, the Europeans are stupid to not protect the Jewish population when Jews leave then they will target non Muslims of any kind so the European best interest is protect the Jewsih population for ever having a future in Europe if not Europe is doomed
The BBC is just like the New York Times having a problem with Jews and Israel, one Rabbi from England or Scotland resigned from the BBC because he could not take the extreme bias against Jews and Israel these stations and newspapers need the organization CAMERA I think that what it's called, a organization that stops bias reporting and true reporting not opinions that are slanted against Jews and Israel
Yes, that is one, others are Honest Reporting and Bright Mind.
I agree and would that The Guardian, an appalling British daily newspaper, is just as bad.
𝔹𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕖𝕧𝕖 𝕚𝕥 𝕠𝕣 𝕟𝕠𝕥, 𝕀’𝕧𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕖𝕟 𝕞𝕒𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕟 $𝟙𝟝,𝟘𝟘𝟘 𝕒 𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕙 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕙𝕠𝕞𝕖. 𝕁𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕥 𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕙,
ℂ𝕆ℙ𝕐 ℍ𝔼ℝ𝔼...... https://salaryhere.com
There is a simple reason for the BBC's problem with Israel and Jews in general: it is disproportionately staffed by Islamist sympathisers and journalists with an ultra left wing outlook. There, I even managed to use a word they love when it comes to Israeli conflicts - 'disproportionate'. Except they haven't been using their favourite word in relation to the hostage-terrorist exchanges. 600 to 4 every week, but the word disproportionate has temporarily vacated their vocabulary.
The BBC should make a documentary from the Israeli side.
Right, but they are very bias like on this side of the pond like the New York Times is, unfortunately a lot of media needs the organization CAMERA which is a organization that makes sure to have truthful unbiased media instead of bias news against Jews and Israel
They'd distort the truth that way as well, but they'd probably sooner choke than expose reality and take a chance that some viewers might actually begin to question all the propaganda garbage the BBC has fed them over the years!
The Australian ABC made a clip of an interview with a released Thai hostage; and although it was clear that Hamas had treated him brutally they nevertheless succeeded in giving the impression that it was all Israel’s fault. Don’t expect better from the BBC.
If only. I'm not holding my breath, though.
The B(ritish)B(igotry)C(rusade) is a disgusting stain on the media. It never lets the truth interfere in their Nazi propaganda. It is a true blight on Britain, and a stunning disgrace it is publicly supported, however unwillingly, by the British population.
It is sad that the British Jews and others don't get the real facts just slanted bias facts about Jews and Israel, I guess the British have a problem they got kicked out of Israel and Israel got independence from them, I guess they are a bunch of sore losers