The ECU considers claims that material broadcast or published by the BBC failed to meet the standards set out in the Editorial Guidelines.  Peter Johnston’s report (which can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/report-peter-johnston-review-gaza-how-to-survive-a-warzone.pdf) has, amongst other things, sought to determine the facts of how the programme came to air in the form that it did (ie without the family connections of the programme’s child narrator (the “Narrator”) being accurately established) and what recommendations for similar future projects could be made, whereas the ECU is concerned solely with the content of what was aired and issues directly related to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines.   

Some of those who complained about the decision to broadcast the show argued specific aspects of what was aired failed to meet the BBC’s editorial standards.  The ECU considered these points in accordance with the process set out in the complaints framework.  This statement represents the final position of the ECU and the BBC on these editorial points. 

Many people complained about the removal of the programme from BBC iPlayer and argued for its reinstatement.  The Director-General has set out why he considered that the programme should be removed from iPlayer, as reported here.  It is not open to the ECU to overrule the decision of the Editor-in-Chief and this issue cannot therefore be considered as part of this finding.

Executive Summary

The ECU has reviewed a number of editorial complaints about the programme.  It has upheld complaints about the contribution of the Narrator who was the son of a Deputy Minister in the Hamas administration.  Viewers should have been told about this connection and the failure to do so gave rise to a breach of the BBC’s standards.   

Other complaints about other aspects of the programme, including the accuracy of translations, duty of care and the editing of sequences, were not upheld by the ECU.

Identification of Contributors

The overwhelming majority of people who complained about the programme objected to the fact one of the contributors (the Narrator) was the son of a Deputy Minister of Agriculture in the Hamas administration.

The guidelines on Accuracy say that significant contributors should be identified so that audiences can judge their status. 

We agree viewers should have been told about the Narrator’s family connection to the Hamas administration.  Had audiences understood this connection, they would have been able to judge his contribution accordingly.  In the absence of this information, the audience may have been misled on a material point, and the programme was in breach of the standards expressed in the guidelines on Accuracy.  We are therefore upholding this complaint.  

We agree with complainants who argued this was a breach of the BBC’s standards and the ECU apologises on behalf of the BBC. 

In the ECU’s view nothing in the Narrator’s contribution – either as an interviewee or narrator – amounted to a breach of the BBC’s standards on impartiality.  We consider the impartiality of the programme more generally below. 

The version of the documentary aired in the days following the discovery of the family connection contained an on-screen graphic alerting viewers to who the father of the Narrator was and the role he held in the Hamas government.  A correction and clarification note was added to the BBC’s site explaining this.  

While this information was helpful to audience understanding, in light of the seriousness of the issue it was not sufficient to allow the ECU to consider the matter resolved by the editorial intervention. 

Bias/Context

One complainant has put the case it is not possible to report from Gaza without the approval and support of Hamas and the programme was therefore biased.  They have argued that Hamas’ control of (and abuses against) journalists and opponents is essential context which was not made clear in the programme.

The BBC’s editorial complaints system considers concerns that what was aired or published on the BBC did not meet the organisation’s editorial standards.  The test is of what was broadcast, and it seemed to the ECU that the programme as a whole accurately and fairly reported the experiences of participants and explored a range of attitudes in Gaza.  Where criticisms were made of IDF actions, the Israeli response to this was included.  It was made clear that events in Gaza followed and were in response to the October 7 attacks, which were the responsibility of Hamas and other armed groups.  Moreover, the documentary included explicit criticisms of Hamas and its leadership, which would not support the charge of Hamas control of the programme, or pro-Hamas bias:

• An individual running from the sound of explosions was translated as exclaiming:

“God damn you all. May God curse you, Sinwar”.

• An individual was translated as shouting:

“They've killed our children, killed our women, while Sinwar is hiding under the ground. Hamas is shooting back”.

• A child contributor (not the Narrator) was asked about Hamas.

“Do you like Hamas?”

“No”.

“Why not?”

“Because they started the war. They caused all this misery. This is wrong.”

• A young adult was seen complaining about the presence of Hamas fighters:

“They are causing us harm. Even if they're far away from the tents, Israel will bombard the whole area and we're done for. Do you see how people are fleeing?”

In light of these contributions, and the absence of evidence to suggest the programme was unduly favourable to Hamas, the ECU did not agree the programme lacked appropriate context or was biased as suggested by the complainant.

Bias/Social Media

A complaint has asserted an image featuring one of the child contributors in the film (other than the Narrator) has been used to promote Hamas in social media posts. 

Again, this concern does not relate to anything in the programme, and the complaint has not identified anything which the child does or says in the documentary which demonstrates the bias it identifies – in fact, the child is seen explicitly condemning Hamas for starting the conflict. 

Safeguarding Concerns

A complaint expressed concern about the welfare of children who participated in this programme.  

The Guidelines make clear that children and young people have a right to speak out and to participate, as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. But Section 9 also places a particular “duty of care” on the BBC to safeguard their physical and emotional welfare. This usually involves obtaining “informed” parental consent and ensuring a detailed assessment of the risks to the welfare of each participant before, during and after the production of the programme.

The ECU has seen evidence consent was sought and obtained for the child participants and that a comprehensive risk assessment was drawn up and implemented. It also noted filming took place in highly unusual circumstances. The backdrop of a continuing conflict meant editorial oversight was of necessity conducted at a distance, with the ability of the BBC and the production company to guarantee the safety of any of the contributors severely circumscribed. This would not of itself amount to a breach of the Guidelines on Duty of Care.

The ECU carefully considered whether the absence of information about the Narrator’s family connection to Hamas left the BBC unable to assess properly the duty of care applicable to him and whether his parents could not be said to have given properly informed consent, without knowledge that this was a material fact the programme might be expected to disclose. However it noted the considerable effort made to ensure the safety and welfare of all the contributors and the flexible nature of the support provided, as new logistical and editorial issues emerged. This included consideration of how any views expressed by the children during filming might impact on their day to day lives. The ECU therefore concluded the addition of information about the Narrator’s connection to Hamas, whilst important editorially, was unlikely to have had a material impact on decisions taken about the best way to safeguard the contributors’ welfare or on his parents’ willingness for him to participate.

Payment

Some complaints have raised concerns over payment to the Narrator who presented the programme, on the basis this amounted to a payment to a terrorist organisation.

8.2.5 Any proposal to pay a fee or to make a payment in kind to criminals, former criminals, their families or their associates (directly or indirectly) for interviews or other contributions relating to their crimes, must be referred to Director Editorial Policy and Standards.

Peter Johnston’s report has found a single financial payment was made to the Narrator’s sister as a disturbance fee. The Narrator’s contribution concerned his experience as a child in Gaza.  Nothing in his appearance on the programme related to the occupation of his father and involvement in a Hamas administration, or to the discussion of crime.  The guideline makes clear that its application is limited to cases where payments are made for contributions relating to crimes.  The payment to the Narrator’s sister fell outside its scope, and was not in breach of the BBC’s editorial standards.

Translation

Some complainants have raised concerns over the accuracy of the translations in the piece, and in particular the fact the word “Yahud” was translated as “Israelis” rather than “Jews”.  Some argue this served to mislead audiences and to “whitewash” the antisemitism of the people speaking, and of Gaza more generally. 

The ECU considered this complaint against the Editorial Guidelines on Accuracy, asking whether the translation would materially mislead audiences.

The BBC’s former regulator, the BBC Trust, looked at this specific question, and the assertion that “Yahud” can only be translated as “Jews” in 2013, in relation to a complaint made at the time. Their finding is set out below:

The [BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards] Committee did not accept the complainant’s contention that only a literal translation of the girl’s words would have met audience expectation. It noted the overarching requirement of the Editorial Guidelines, requiring that content observe “due accuracy” and “due impartiality”, i.e. that it is adequate and appropriate taking into account the subject and nature of the content and the likely audience expectation. The Committee noted that the requirements for “due accuracy” and “due impartiality” underpin the entire guidelines. In this case, as the ECU had also found, the programme-makers had demonstrated that they had taken care to reach a considered view on the appropriate translation, taking into account the circumstances in which the girl was discussing interaction. The Committee considered that the decision to translate the girl’s words as “an Israeli” was an appropriate exercise of editorial judgement. In taking this view the Committee emphasised that no interpretation of the Editorial Guidelines requires content producers to make direct word-for-word translations without also taking account of relevant context.

It considered too the submission from BBC News, in response to the circulation of a draft of the background note prepared for the appeal, which quoted the Multimedia Editor of the BBC Arabic Service: “I think that using the word ‘Israelis’ in the voiceover was accurate. I travelled to Israel and the Palestinian territories many times over the past 20 years and I have heard myself how Palestinians (both in Israel and in the Palestinian territories) use the word ‘Jew/s’ to refer [to] Israelis. It would have been misleading to translate ‘Al Yahoud’ as Jews because it would give the wrong impression that the girl meant all Jews around the world, but in fact she was talking about Israeli Jews. “Similarly, Palestinians are referred to by Israeli Jews as ‘Arabs’. So Palestinians refer to Israeli Jews as ‘Al Yahoud’ the same way that Israeli Jews refer to Palestinians as ‘Arabs’. Both sides don’t like to spell out the nationality of the other side for obvious reasons.” The Committee considered, in light of these statements, that the translation employed by the programme-makers was well-sourced and based on sound evidence.

The ECU noted the current BBC News Style Guide urges caution on this point:

Be careful over whether you mean ‘Israeli’ or ‘Jewish’: the latter might imply that the story is about ethnicity or religion, rather than the actions of the state or its citizens.

In the view of the ECU the references complained of related to the latter.  In light of the context set out above, the ECU concluded the translations did not risk materially misleading audiences on what the people speaking meant and were in keeping with the guidelines and guidance at the time. 

As noted in Peter Johnston’s report, new guidance over the translation of the word Yahud will now be put in place. 

One complaint also objected to the translation of the words “jihad” and “shahid”.  This relates to a section of the film in which it is announced that Yahya Sinwar is dead.  A young adult is watching and describing their reaction to footage of his death. The subtitles read:

“His face was covered and his weapon was ready, prepared for battle. People were saying he was hiding in the tunnels or in a fancy apartment.”

“They claimed he was living comfortably while we suffered, hiding out after October 7th, but the video shows that he was fighting and resisting Israeli forces. He wasn't hiding.”

In the view of the ECU the translation was sufficient to convey the sense of what the contributor was saying in response to the death of Sinwar – who had just been described as the man who was responsible for the October 7 attacks.  Viewers could see the footage of his death for themselves on the contributor’s phone, and would understand that the contributor considered this showed he had died honourably, while fighting against Israeli forces.   Again, due accuracy would not require a word-for-word dictionary translation to give a sense of what the contributor meant. It was apparent from the contribution what the contributor thought of the manner of his death at the hands of the IDF, and nothing in the translation misrepresented this. The fact the contributor saw heroism in the actions of the man who had masterminded the terror attacks of 7 October was clear, and the translation conveyed this faithfully.  Viewers would also have contrasted that with the more critical view they had just heard, from another contributor who was openly unhappy with Hamas.

Sequencing

A complaint argued that the section of the programme introducing a young Gazan child and his work at the hospital was misleading, in that it was not strictly chronological but included scenes shot on a different day.  It maintained that because a caption on the screen announcing “Day 245” of the conflict had appeared earlier, all the footage which followed must have been shot on this day – or audiences would have been misled.

The ECU reviewed the material with this concern in mind. The ECU’s review determined that the section introducing the child included shots from other days.  This may not have been immediately clear to audiences as the child was wearing the same clothes.

Nevertheless, the ECU did not consider the sequence misleading on any material point.  Even if the audience had formed the impression that the footage was from a single day, the passage in question simply introduced the child and their work at the hospital.  It did not make any assertions as to how what was shown fitted into the broader chronology of the conflict. 

The guidelines on Accuracy and Production Techniques acknowledge that such techniques are acceptable, where they augment content in a simple and straightforward way, but that news and factual output must take care not to misrepresent events.  They should therefore not normally:

…inter-cut shots and sequences if the resulting juxtaposition of material leads to a materially misleading impression of events.

The ECU can see no basis for concluding the editing techniques used here would have given viewers a misleading sense of what happened either on the day of the al-Bureij attack, or more generally. 

Al-Aqsa Hospital

One complaint argued that scenes showing the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike were misleading, in that “critical information” was omitted about the strike and the deaths and injuries which followed, including a man seen burning to death. 

This section of the programme showed what happened following an IDF airstrike on a camp in a carpark adjacent to the Al-Aqsa hospital.  The complaint seen by the ECU raised questions of accuracy and impartiality.  It said that a contributor was seen to rebut the IDF’s claims as to the presence of Hamas and that the piece omitted part of the statement of the IDF asserting the fire which burned a number of people to death was in fact caused by secondary explosions of Hamas ordinance stored nearby.  The complaint argued this was “the likely truth” and that four independent experts quoted in a newspaper article had confirmed this.

This section of the film made the IDF’s position clear – it included their statement that this was “a precise strike on terrorists who were operating inside a command and control centre”.  It also included the comments of an eye-witness on what he had and had not seen personally.  Neither impartiality nor accuracy would prevent the filmmakers from including one person’s own experience, even where this does not accord with the claims made by another party.  The contributor’s comments were presented as their account, not a statement of uncontested fact

A complaint cited an article in The Washington Post as showing this section of the film was inaccurate.  This article reported that a witness had assigned the blaze to the explosion of gas cannisters used for cooking:

A witness told The Washington Post that the tents caught fire as several explosions rocked the area. The strike caused gas cylinders to explode, said Ahmed al-Ras, 41, a photojournalist for local network Al-Kofiya TV who was inside the hospital premises at the time.

The experts quoted in the article who speculated on the potential cause of secondary explosions did so in heavily caveated terms, and referred to “fuel and relatively small munitions”:

Four munitions experts who reviewed videos of secondary explosions at the scene at The Post’s request said the explosions were probably caused by a mixture of fuel and relatively small munitions, including small-arms ammunition. But they cautioned that the exact balance of these factors would be difficult to determine without access to the site.

For their part the IDF referred to “secondary explosions” without stipulating whether these were from fuel or ammunition, and said the incident was under review:

“Shortly after the strike, a fire ignited in the hospital’s parking lot, most likely due to secondary explosions. The incident is under review,” the IDF said.

In light of the above the ECU concluded that there was no evidence to support the charge that the programme had misreported what had happened in a manner which was unfair to Israel.