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BBC Blasted for Gaza Documentary Hiding Palestinian Interviewees’ Antisemitism, Hamas Ties
The BBC logo is seen at the entrance at Broadcasting House, the BBC headquarters in central London. Photo by Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The BBC chose to remove the documentary “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone” from its iPlayer streaming platform on Friday pending an internal investigation following a raft of criticisms regarding multiple links to Hamas and inaccurate translations obscuring participants’ antisemitism.
On Feb. 17, the broadcaster debuted the film, which features a 13-year-old narrator (now 14) named Abdullah Al-Yazouri, who viewers identified as the son of Dr. Ayman Al-Yazouri, a man who works as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture. Pro-Israel researcher David Collier said that the boy and his father come from the same family as Hamas founder Ibrahim Al-Yazouri.
“The child of Hamas royalty was given an hour on a BBC channel to walk around looking for sympathy and demonizing Israel,” Collier said. “They followed this family for months. There is no way on earth they did not know who this family was. How can the BBC possibly justify trusting anything else in the entire documentary?”
In addition, Hatem Rawagh, a cameraman who worked on the documentary, has praised Hamas and the terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.
Uncovered by the Arabic division of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), Rawagh wrote online on Oct. 7 in reference to the Yom Kippur war that “whoever missed Oct 6 [1973] in Egypt … Oct 7 is happening [now] in Palestine.” The next day he shared a video from Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades which showed a view from a head camera attached to one of the terrorists who shot a rifle and killed an Israeli near the Gaza border. Rawagh wrote, “You are going to come back to this video a million times.”
Amjad Al Fayoumi, another cameraman who worked on the documentary, has likewise advocated for Hamas, posting a salute to the Oct. 7 attacks and sharing “resistance” videos which featured terrorists, rockets, and Israeli funerals.
The cost of the documentary has also come under criticism. “The BBC needs to account for every penny spent on this documentary — £400,000 is a lot of licence-fee payers money,” said Danny Cohen, former director of BBC television. “They should be transparently told where their money went and whether any of it reached the hands of Hamas.”
The documentary has further received backlash for its mistranslations of “Jew” and omissions of “jihad.” The Telegraph reported that on at least five occasions the Arabic word for “Jew”— “Yahud” or “Yahudy” — received the translation “Israel” or “Israeli forces” or was removed altogether.
At four minutes into the film, a woman says, “The Jews invaded our [area],” but the subtitles say, “The Israeli army invaded our area.”
Later in the documentary, the subtitles describe a woman as saying “we’re used to seeing flashes of lightning in the sky. But now it’s real missiles. We’re happy that for once the rockets aren’t falling on us.” However, according to CAMERA, she really said that “at first, when we would see these [flashes], they would be flares, by the way. From the Jews. But now they turned out to be [real] missiles.”
In an interview with another woman, the documentary claims she described the Oct. 7 terror attacks as the “first time we invaded Israel — it was always the other way round.” CAMERA noted that the correct translation of her statement is “we were invading the Jews for the first time.”
Near the film’s conclusion, a woman discusses the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, that “his face was covered and his weapon was ready, prepared for battle.” The correct translation of her statement is reportedly “ready for jihad.” She later says, according to the subtitles, that “the video shows that he was fighting and resisting Israeli forces. He wasn’t hiding.” CAMERA said that the accurate translation of her words is “he was engaging in resistance and jihad against the Jews. Not underground.”
Alex Hearn, the co-director of Labour Against Anti-Semitism, said that “it is this whitewashing that keeps viewers ill-informed about the nature of Hamas, and promotes sympathy for their deadly ideology. This documentary signifies the institutional failure behind the BBC”s reporting of the Israel-Hamas conflict.”
Orly Goldschmidt of the Israeli embassy in the UK said that the mistranslations do not allow “viewers to see how children, and Palestinians at large, have been taught to hate ‘Jews’ from a very young age.”
A spokesperson for the BBC said in a statement that “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone” features “important stories we think should be told — those of the experiences of children in Gaza. There have been continuing questions raised about the program and in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The program will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place.”
Investigators are supposed to deliver a report about the documentary to the BBC on Thursday, the results of which will be made public that day or on Friday.
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New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’
Zohran Mamdani. Photo: Ron Adar / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
In a warning sign for the campaign of Democratic nominee for mayor of New York Zohran Mamdani, a majority of city voters in a new poll say the candidate’s hardline anti-Israel stance makes them less likely to vote for him.
In the survey of likely city voters conducted by American Pulse, 52.5 percent said Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” coupled with his backing of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement made them less likely to vote for him in November. Just 31% of city voters polled were more likely to support him because of these positions.
At the same time, a significant share of young New York City voters support Mamdani’s anti-Israel positioning, a striking sign of shifting generational views on Israel and the Palestinian cause.
Nearly half of voters aged 18 to 44 (46 percent) said the State Assembly member’s backing for BDS and “refusal to condemn the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’” made them more likely to support him.
Mamdani, a democratic socialist from Queens, has been under fire for defending “globalize the intifada,” a slogan many Jewish groups associate with incitement to violence against Israel and Jews. While critics argue it glorifies terrorism, supporters claim it’s a call for international solidarity with oppressed peoples, especially Palestinians. Mamdani has also voiced support for BDS, a movement widely condemned by mainstream Jewish organizations as antisemitic for singling out Israel.
The generational divide exposed by the poll comes amid a broader political realignment. Younger progressives across the country are increasingly critical of Israeli policies, especially in the wake of the Gaza war, and more receptive to Palestinian activism. But to many Jewish leaders, Mamdani’s rising support is alarming.
Rabbi David Wolpe, visiting scholar at Harvard University, condemned the phrase with a sarcastic analogy.
“‘Globalize the intifada’ is just a political slogan,” he said. “Like ‘The cockroaches must be exterminated’ was just a housing authority slogan in Rwanda.”
Jewish organizations have reported a surge in antisemitic incidents in New York and across the U.S. since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war last fall. The blending of anti-Zionist slogans with calls for “intifada,” historically linked to violent uprisings, has deepened fears among Jewish communities that traditional red lines are being crossed.
Whether this emerging coalition reshapes New York politics remains to be seen. However, the poll indicates that among younger voters, views that were once considered fringe are quickly moving into the mainstream.
The post New Poll: Majority of NYC Voters ‘Less Likely’ to Support Mamdani Over His Refusal to Condemn ‘Globalize the Intifada’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Report: Jews Targeted at June’s Pride Month Events
A Jewish gay pride flag. Photo: Twitter.
The research division of the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) released a report on Wednesday detailing incidents of hate against Jews which took place last month during demonstrations in celebration of LGBTQ rights and identity.
Incidents reported by the group include:
- At a Pride march in Wales, the activists Cymru Queers for Palestine chose to block the path and show a sign that said “Profiting from genocide,” an attempt to link the event’s sponsors — such as Amazon — to the war in Gaza.
- A Dublin Pride march saw the participation of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which labeled Israel a “genocidal entity.”
- In Toronto at a late June Pride march, demonstrators again attacked organizers with a sign declaring, “Pride partners with genocide.”
CAM also identified a recurring narrative deployed against Israel by some far-left activists: so-called “pinkwashing,” a term which the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) movement calls “an Israeli government propaganda strategy that cynically exploits LGBTQIA+ rights to project a progressive image while concealing Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies oppressing Palestinians.”
The report notes that at a Washington DC Pride event in early June Medea Benjamin, cofounder of activist group Code Pink and a regular of anti-war protests, wore a pair of goofy, oversized sunglasses and a shirt in her signature pink with the phrase “you can’t pinkwash genocide.”
Other incidents CAM recorded showed the injection of anti-Israel sentiment into Pride events.
A musical group canceled a performance at an interfaith service in Brooklyn, claiming the hosting synagogue had a “public alignment with pro-Israel political positions.” In San Francisco before the yearly Trans March, a Palestine group said in its announcement of its participation, “Stop the war on Iran and the genocide of Palestine, stop the war on immigrants and attacks on trans people.”
CAM notes that this “queers for Palestine” sentiment is not new, pointing to a 2017 event wherein “organizers of the Chicago Dyke March infamously removed participants who were waving a Pride flag adorned with a Star of David on the grounds that the symbol ‘made people feel unsafe.’”
In February, the Israel Defense Forces shared with the New York Post documents it had recovered demonstrating that Hamas had tortured and executed members it suspected of homosexuality and other moral offenses in conflict with Islamist ideology.
Amit Benjamin, who is gay and a first sergeant major in the IDF, said during a visit to New York City for Pride month that “All the ‘queers for Gaza’ need to open their eyes. Hamas kills gays … kills lesbians … queers cannot exist in Gaza.”
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IAEA pulls inspectors from Iran as standoff over access drags on
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi at the agency’s headquarters in Vienna, Austria, June 23, 2025. REUTERS/Elisabeth Mandl/File Photo
The UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it had pulled its last remaining inspectors from Iran as a standoff over their return to the country’s nuclear facilities bombed by the United States and Israel deepens.
Israel launched its first military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war with the Islamic Republic three weeks ago. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors have not been able to inspect Iran’s facilities since then, even though IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said that is his top priority.
Iran’s parliament has now passed a law to suspend cooperation with the IAEA until the safety of its nuclear facilities can be guaranteed. While the IAEA says Iran has not yet formally informed it of any suspension, it is unclear when the agency’s inspectors will be able to return to Iran.
“An IAEA team of inspectors today safely departed from Iran to return to the Agency headquarters in Vienna, after staying in Tehran throughout the recent military conflict,” the IAEA said on X.
Diplomats said the number of IAEA inspectors in Iran was reduced to a handful after the June 13 start of the war. Some have also expressed concern about the inspectors’ safety since the end of the conflict, given fierce criticism of the agency by Iranian officials and Iranian media.
Iran has accused the agency of effectively paving the way for the bombings by issuing a damning report on May 31 that led to a resolution by the IAEA’s 35-nation Board of Governors declaring Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has said he stands by the report. He has denied it provided diplomatic cover for military action.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday Iran remained committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“[Grossi] reiterated the crucial importance of the IAEA discussing with Iran modalities for resuming its indispensable monitoring and verification activities in Iran as soon as possible,” the IAEA said.
The US and Israeli military strikes either destroyed or badly damaged Iran’s three uranium enrichment sites. But it was less clear what has happened to much of Iran’s nine tonnes of enriched uranium, especially the more than 400 kg enriched to up to 60% purity, a short step from weapons grade.
That is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. Iran says its aims are entirely peaceful, but Western powers say there is no civil justification for enriching to such a high level, and the IAEA says no country has done so without developing the atom bomb.
As a party to the NPT, Iran must account for its enriched uranium, which normally is closely monitored by the IAEA, the body that enforces the NPT and verifies countries’ declarations. But the bombing of Iran’s facilities has now muddied the waters.
“We cannot afford that … the inspection regime is interrupted,” Grossi told a press conference in Vienna last week.
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