BBC pulls Gaza medics documentary due to impartiality concerns

The BBC says it has decided not to broadcast a documentary about doctors working in Gaza, due to impartiality concerns it has surrounding the production.

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was commissioned by the BBC but produced by an independent production company. It was originally scheduled for broadcast in February, but has not yet aired on any BBC outlet.

In a statement, the BBC said it was “determined to report all aspects of the conflict in the Middle East impartially and fairly”.

Basement Films said it was “relieved that the BBC will finally allow this film to be released”. The BBC confirmed it was “transferring ownership of the film material to Basement Films”.

The production company’s founder, Ben de Pear, said earlier this week the BBC had “utterly failed” and that journalists were “being stymied and silenced”.

BBC News understands the decision to shelve the documentary was taken on Thursday, following public comments by De Pear at the Sheffield Documentary Festival, and another of the film’s directors, journalist Ramita Navai, who appeared on Radio 4’s Today discussing the war in Gaza.

Navai told the programme Israel had “become a rogue state that’s committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass murdering Palestinians”. Israel has denied accusations of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.

A different documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was pulled from iPlayer earlier this year after it emerged its 13-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official.

Gaza: Doctors Under Attack – also known as Gaza: Medics Under Fire – is said to examine the experiences of Palestinian medics working during the war in Gaza.

The film is directed by Karim Shah, Navai and De Pear, a former editor of Channel 4 News.

In a statement on Friday, the BBC said it had commissioned the documentary over a year ago, but paused the film in April, “having made a decision that we could not broadcast the film while a review into a separate Gaza documentary was ongoing”.

“With both films coming from independent production companies, and both about Gaza, it was right to wait for any relevant findings – and put them into action – before broadcasting the film.

“However, we wanted the doctors’ voices to be heard. Our aim was to find a way to air some of the material in our news programmes, in line with our impartiality standards, before the review was published.

“For some weeks, the BBC has been working with Basement Films to find a way to tell the stories of these doctors on our…