BBC pressured to axe senior staff who oversaw Gaza documentary narrated by son of a Hamas official

The BBC was under growing pressure last night to axe senior staff who oversaw the production of a Gaza documentary narrated by the son of a Hamas official.

A core of executives who work on the BBC’s current affairs output are under intense scrutiny over the programme – and whether licence fee money was paid to the terror group. 

Politicians and campaigners said heads must roll after the corporation admitted ‘serious flaws’ in the documentary’s production.

Those under the spotlight include head of BBC current affairs Joanna Carr, along with commissioning editors Gian Quaglieni and Sarah Waldron, who were all directly involved in the programme. 

Further up the management chain, the highly paid chief executive of BBC News and Current Affairs, Deborah Turness, also faces questions.

Former Labour MP Lord Austin, who sits as an independent peer, said: ‘Surely those who oversaw the making of this programme should be sacked for the very serious professional and moral failings.’

The Campaign Against Antisemitism said: ‘The BBC’s statement is an exercise in desperate damage control, and shows why an internal review is no substitute for an independent investigation into this documentary and the wider bias at the BBC that allowed it to be made and aired. Clearly those responsible must lose their jobs.’

Current affairs boss Ms Carr, who joined the BBC as a news trainee in 1997, was directly in charge of the programme.

A TV insider said: ‘Given the nature of the story and the pressure the BBC is under, everyone in a senior position should have been on high alert. The BBC is in a lot of trouble. How does anyone in charge of editorial oversight survive that?

'There has been a curious lack of curiosity at every level over many months on a project that had flashing lights all over it.’

BBC stars including Gary Lineker signed an open letter earlier this week defending the controversial Gaza documentary which now faces a probe by counter-terror police.

Lineker, the corporation’s highest-paid star, and presenter Anita Rani were among more than a dozen BBC staff members who put their names to the letter, which was sent to the broadcaster’s top team including BBC director-general Tim Davie.

Celebrities such as Miriam Margoyles also signed the letter, along with 13 anonymous BBC staff members.

Questions are now being asked about the identities of the BBC employees and whether they will be able to impartially report on the Middle East conflict in the future.

The letter – which was signed by more than 850 film, TV and media workers – urged the BBC to ‘reject attempts to have the documentary permanently removed or subjected to undue disavowals’.

It added: ‘Calls to remove the documentary from iPlayer and social media set a dangerous precedent.‘As media professionals, we are extremely alarmed by the intervention of political actors, including foreign diplomats, and what this means for the future of broadcasting in this country.

‘Silencing a child’s firsthand account of survival in Gaza, where over 13,000 children have been killed since October 2023, is not about compliance but about erasing Palestinian suffering.

'The BBC must resist political pressure aimed at suppressing narratives that humanise Palestinians. A broadcaster cannot allow bad-faith attacks to dictate its editorial decisions.’

One of the letter’s highest-profile supporters, Match Of The Day host Lineker, has previously come under heavy fire for breaching the BBC’s impartiality guidelines.

It was announced on Thursday that he is moving to ITV to appear on a new show, The Assembly.

Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone was removed from BBC iPlayer after it was revealed that its child narrator was the son of a senior Hamas official. 

On Thursday the BBC was forced to apologise after admitting that there had been ‘serious flaws’ in how the programme was made.

In a statement it confirmed that independent production company Hoyo Films had paid the wife of a Hamas government minister while making the documentary. The BBC has been contacted for comment.