British investigative journalist David Collier was among the first and most vocal to point out the problems with the BBC’s recent documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. Both in writing on his website and in interviews in British media, he identified several key problems with the documentary which aired on February 17 and was pulled after Collier and some other independent journalists raised major issues – including that the father of Abdullah, a boy featured in the film, is a Hamas official named Ayman Al Yazouri.
“This is a Hamas propaganda pantomime,” Collier told The Jewish Press by phone from England. “A 13-year-old boy they follow who narrates it, it is shown like he is a regular child. There is no mention that his father is an official in the Hamas government. How could they not mention that? Another person, Aya [Ashour] is presented as a regular person and she praised numerous terrorist attacks by Hamas in which Israelis were killed. This is not mentioned either. They didn’t do a background check? Come on, it’s ridiculous. There is no due diligence.”
On his website, Collier posted a tweet of Ashour’s from March 29, 2022, when a terrorist murdered five Israelis in Bnei Brak, which read: “…Glory to the weapons. Glory to the rebels.” She also tweeted that Palestine celebrated Eid early on June 20, 2023 when a terrorist murdered four Israelis.
Collier told The Jewish Press that it took him only a few hours to identify major problems with the documentary. For example, the BBC translated jihad simply as “battle” instead of “holy war.” Further, Collier noted that one of the cameramen for the film had posted a celebration of the October 7 massacre.
Collier, who is Jewish and lived in Israel in the past has been a staunch critic of the BBC for a long time, accusing it of anti-Israel bias. But he said this documentary is more egregious.
“They’re caught and they know it,” he said. “The BBC knows it’s unacceptable. They know it should not have aired. There will have to be an inquiry. There have been problems for the last years but this documentary has problems from start to finish. It makes Hamas seem like an alien invasion attack from out of nowhere. As bad as the BBC has been, this is new territory.”
The Israeli Prime Minister’s office praised Collier as well as Jonathan Sacerdoti as individuals who don’t have huge resources but exposed “lies and blatant half-truths” of the BBC.
Collier noted that the BBC is a public service broadcaster and a 400,000-pound license fee was paid for this documentary. In an interview on GB News, Collier said the BBC is “injecting antisemitism into the veins of this country,” referring to the U.K.
The BBC has admitted “serious flaws” in the documentary, and said it had no plans to broadcast it again. The network blamed Hoyo Films and said the production company knew the boy’s father was part of Hamas but never told them. Also in a statement, the BBC said it gave the boy’s mother “a limited sum of money.”
Regarding the BBC’s response, Collier said, “The BBC needs to rebuild its whole Middle East department if it wants to be taken seriously.”
Collier said while it is true that Israel doesn’t allow foreign journalists to enter Gaza, that is not an excuse for the BBC’s failing to do due diligence before airing a program which uses Gazans – not after.
In a press conference with President Donald Trump in Washington, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “concerned” about the film.
Variety reported that Artists for Palestine U.K., consisting of more than 450 individuals in British film, TV, and media, published a letter criticizing the BBC’s decision to take the film down, calling the move “politically motivated censorship,” and referred to the documentary as “an essential piece of journalism, offering an all-too rare perspective on the lived experience of Palestinian children living in unimaginable circumstances.”
In that regard, Collier said he is used to those who “are so far left and not interested in facts.”
