BBC Review of Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone published

The BBC programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone breached one of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, by failing to disclose information about the child narrator’s father’s position within the Hamas-run government, a report published today finds.

The Review finds no other breaches of the Editorial Guidelines, including any breaches of impartiality, and no evidence that outside interests “inappropriately impacted on the programme".  It added: “that careful consideration of the requirements of due impartiality was undertaken in this project given the highly contested nature of the subject matter.”

Peter Johnston, Director of Editorial Complaints and Reviews (who is independent of BBC News and Current Affairs), was asked to conduct a review into the programme after it was broadcast on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer in February this year, and then subsequently removed from BBC iPlayer.

The programme was made for the BBC by the independent production company HOYO Films. BBC News, like all international journalistic organisations, continues to be prevented from entering Gaza to report on the ground.

The film was narrated by a 13-year-old boy, whose narration was scripted.

Mr Johnston’s review finds that the programme breached Editorial Guideline 3.3.17 on accuracy, which deals with misleading audiences. His report describes the background on the narrator’s father as “critical information”, which was not shared with the BBC before broadcast. “Regardless of how the significance or otherwise of the Narrator’s father’s position was judged, the audience should have been informed about this,” his report says.

While the Review does not consider that HOYO Films intentionally misled the BBC about the narrator’s father’s position, it finds the independent production company bears most responsibility for this failure. However, it concludes that the BBC also bears some responsibility. The BBC takes this finding very seriously, acknowledging it has ultimate editorial responsibility for the programme as broadcast.

As part of their comprehensive work, the Review team identified and considered 5000 documents from a 10-month production period, as well as 150 hours of material filmed during production, to inform Mr Johnson’s conclusions.

The BBC is taking fair, clear and appropriate action, based on the Review’s findings to ensure accountability. We will not comment further on any individual confidential processes.

A number of steps will also now be taken to prevent the breach being repeated.

BBC Director-General Tim Davie says: "Peter Johnston’s report identifies a significant failing in relation to accuracy in this documentary. I thank him for his thorough work and I am sorry for this failing.

"We will now take action on two fronts – fair, clear and appropriate actions to ensure proper accountability and the immediate implementation of steps to prevent such errors being repeated."

Statement from the BBC Board

"We thank Peter Johnston for his work. His report is a comprehensive examination of a complex programme, the production of which spanned many months from concept through to broadcast – and is critical in laying bare the facts of what happened.

"Nothing is more important than trust and transparency in our journalism. We welcome the actions the Executive are taking to avoid this failing being repeated in the future."

Statement from HOYO Films

"We take the findings in Peter Johnston’s report on Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone extremely seriously and apologise for the mistake that resulted in a breach of the Editorial Guidelines. We are pleased that the report found that there was no evidence of inappropriate influence on the content of the documentary from any third party. We appreciate the rigorous nature of this investigation, and its findings that HOYO Films did not intentionally mislead the BBC, that there were no other breaches of the Editorial Guidelines in the programme, and that there was no evidence to suggest that the programme funds were spent other than for reasonable, production-related purposes. HOYO Films welcomes the report’s recommendations and hope they will improve processes and prevent similar problems in the future.

"We are working closely with the BBC to see if we can find an appropriate way to bring back to iPlayer the stories of those featured in the programme.

"Our team in Gaza risked their lives to document the devastating impact of war on children. Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone remains a vital account, and our contributors, who have no say in the conflict, deserve to have their voices heard.”

Findings

Narration

When the programme first aired on 17 February 2025, three members of the independent production company knew of the father’s position, but no one within the BBC knew this at that time.  The Review finds this failure to bring the information to the BBC’s attention was a “significant oversight by the production company”.

But the report also criticises the BBC team for not being “sufficiently proactive” with initial editorial checks and for a “lack of critical oversight of unanswered or partially answered questions” ahead of broadcast. The programme should not have been signed off as compliant without these questions having been fully and properly answered.

The 30-page report concludes that Peter Johnston’s review saw no evidence “to support a suggestion that the narrator’s father or family influenced the content of the programme in any way” and that the narrator’s scripted contribution to the programme did not constitute a breach of due impartiality.

However, the report notes that in the circumstances and with the benefit of hindsight, the use of this child narrator for this programme – while not a breach of the Editorial Guidelines – was “not appropriate.”

Financials

A detailed financial audit of the programme, which informed Mr Johnston’s review, finds there was no reasonable basis to conclude that anyone engaged or paid in connection with the programme was subject to financial sanctions.

The Review concludes there was no evidence to suggest programme funds were spent on anything other than reasonable, production-related expenses.

The financial audit found that a disturbance fee of c. £795 was paid for the narrator. The Review finds that this payment was not “outside of the range of what might be reasonable in the context”.

BBC News Action Plan

Mr Johnston’s report concludes with a series of recommendations which have been accepted in full by the BBC. BBC News has published an Action Plan in response.

BBC News CEO Deborah Turness says: At the heart of this programme were powerful and important stories that need to be told. But it’s clear that in this programme we made a significant mistake. 

"This is why we have drawn up a robust action plan to make sure all of Peter Johnston’s recommendations are implemented.

"Our audiences deserve the highest possible standards of accuracy from the BBC, and we are strengthening our editorial oversight to ensure that we deliver this for them.

"We remain committed to reporting from Gaza, despite the fact that international journalists are not allowed in."

The Action Plan includes:

HOYO Films and the future of the programme - Given the serious editorial breach identified in the production of Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, we do not think it is appropriate to reinstate the programme in its current form to iPlayer. However, as we said at the time, it is important to tell the story of what is happening in Gaza, despite BBC News being prevented from reporting independently on the ground. 

We remain keen to tell the stories of those featured in the documentary and will now explore the possibility of doing this through re-edited and re-versioned shorter films for archive on iPlayer. This will require us to work through difficult and sensitive issues with the independent production company, HOYO Films – involving compliance, including translation, context, consent and the safeguarding of those who took part in the documentary.

Elsewhere, the BBC has no current or future planned commissions with HOYO Films.

BBC Accountability – The BBC is taking fair, clear and appropriate action, based on the findings, to ensure accountability. We will not comment further on any individual confidential processes.

Language - The BBC will issue new editorial guidance to programme makers on the use and translation of the word ‘Yahud/ Yahudi’ into English, following the recommendation in Peter Johnston’s Review. Going forward, programme makers should default to using the literal translation of those terms as ‘Jews/ Jewish’. It will still be possible to use a different translation, but this would need to be referred up to senior executive editor level and the programme should make clear to the audience wherever possible why they deviated from the literal translation. Peter Johnston’s report also recommends that ‘Yahud/ Yahudi’ be looked at more comprehensively, and with external input, through the forthcoming thematic review of BBC Middle East coverage agreed by the BBC Board.

Narration - There will also be new editorial guidance that careful consideration must be given to the use of narrators in the area of contested current affairs programmes. The narrator will be subject to a higher level of scrutiny, with assurance required that their own background, connections and/ or viewpoints will not put either them or the BBC in a difficult position or raise questions of impartiality.

A new leadership role in News documentaries and current affairs – BBC News will create a new Director role on the BBC News Board. This new role will have strategic leadership of our long form output across BBC News. We will advertise the role in the next seven days.

Enhanced editorial controls – A “First Gate” process will mean no high-risk long form programmes can become a formal commission until all potential compliance considerations are considered and listed, including rigorous social media and background checks. These will be tracked through to the “Final Gate” process, which was introduced earlier this year and will now be made permanent. Going forward, we will also embed a dedicated senior BBC News executive producer inside the production team for every high-risk long form film produced by an independent supplier for BBC News.

BBC Press Office

Notes to Editors

The Terms of Reference of the review were to:

1. investigate how and why the BBC came to transmit the Programme without the family connections of the Narrator having been accurately established;
2. investigate the circumstances in which payments were made for the contributions of the Narrator and the method by which those payments were made;
3. look at any additional concerns raised in relation to the Programme’s expenditure, beyond those identified at paragraph (b) above, following the findings of a wider audit commissioned into the finances of the Programme;
4. look at any additional concerns raised in relation to the Programme’s compliance with the BBC’s editorial standards, including issues around the use of language, translation and continuity, and due diligence conducted on other individuals involved in the Programme;
5. identify which of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines applied to the Programme and the extent to which any were not met; and
6. look at any issues raised in relation to the Programme’s compliance with the BBC’s child safeguarding policies and procedures.

Facts and figures on the Review:

• The Review team considered over 5,000 documents and Peter conducted interviews with ten individuals (including interviewing some individuals more than once). He also requested and received written submissions in response to questions from some of the individuals interviewed.  The Review team also conducted an editorial review of over 150 hours of rushes, with help as needed from a fluent Arabic speaker. All of this work has been done with great care, which takes time.
• It should be noted that the production process of the documentary was ten months, which also indicates the volume of material the team had first to identify and then review.
• The total cost of the review is approximately £98,500 (exclusive of VAT) as at the date of the report’s publication.

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