Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone

"If anything happens to me, the BBC is responsible."

Abdullah al-Yazuri, the 13-year-old narrator of Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, speaks to MEE after the BBC pulled the documentary.

"I worked for nine months, and it was all wiped."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-palestinian-child-centre-documentary-row-holds-bbc-responsible-fate

Exclusive: Palestinian child in Gaza documentary row holds BBC responsible for fate.

Abdullah al-Yazuri, 13, told MEE he has faced harassment over his role narrating the film but that the BBC has not reached out to apologise.

Abdullah al-Yazuri said that he had hoped the documentary could 'spread the message of the suffering that children in Gaza witness'.

Abdullah al-Yazuri is 13 years old and has witnessed death and devastation on a scale that most could never imagine.

Having survived Israel’s deadly war on Gaza, which has killed at least 48,380 Palestinians so far, Abdullah’s dream is to study journalism in distant Britain, where his father got his PhD.

But in recent weeks, Abdullah has found himself at the center of a national row in Britain, triggered by his role narrating a BBC documentary on Gaza’s children, Gaza: How To Survive a Warzone.

Speaking to Middle East Eye this week, Abdullah described spending hours being filmed in the besieged enclave during the war.

He said that he had hoped that the documentary could “spread the message of the suffering that children in Gaza witness”.

Instead, just four days after the documentary aired on 17 February, the BBC pulled it from its streaming platform, iPlayer, after an intense campaign by pro-Israel groups and rival British media outlets.

Their criticism centered over revelations that Abdullah’s father, Ayman al-Yazuri, is a deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza’s government, which is administered by Hamas.

'I did not agree to the risk of me being targeted in any way before the documentary was broadcasted on the BBC. So [if] anything happens to me, the BBC is responsible for it'.

Abdullah al-Yazuri has been widely labelled a “Hamas chief”, “Hamas official” and “terror chief” by commentators and news organizations in Britain.

But MEE revealed on 20 February 2025, that Abdullah al-Yazuri was in fact a technocrat with a scientific rather than political background and had previously worked for the UAE’s education ministry and studied at British universities.

Ministers, bureaucrats and civil servants in Gaza are appointed by Hamas, while in the West Bank they are appointed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

The withdrawal of the documentary was coupled with torrents of online harassment and abuse targeting Abdullah and his family.

“I’ve been working for over nine months on this documentary for it to just get wiped and deleted… it was very sad to me.” Abdullah, who had spent around 60 hours obtaining footage, said.

“It was pretty disappointing and sad to see this backlash against me and my family, and this harassment," he continued, adding: “Some anonymous people, let’s say, had tried to hide the true suffering of Gaza’s children by attacking me and my family."

He told MEE that the affair has caused him serious “mental pressure” and made him fear for his safety.

Now, he says, he holds the BBC responsible for his fate.

The BBC’s conduct throughout the row has been criticized by prominent media personalities, former diplomats and politicians.

Sir Vincent Fean, who was British consul-general to Jerusalem between 2010 and 2014, said that the BBC and producers “have a duty to protect the dignity and well-being of an innocent 13-year-old boy.

“They have failed, he is receiving hate-mail, and his mental health is suffering,” he said.

“He has done nothing to deserve this. Shame on them.”

No apology

The BBC’s chair, Samir Shah, told MPs that revelations about the documentary were “a dagger to the heart of the BBC’s claim to be impartial and to be trustworthy”.

While the BBC has been accused of broadcasting “Hamas propaganda”, there has been no evidence of Hamas influence on the film’s content.

Abdullah said his narration was scripted by the production company commissioned for the documentary without the input of any outside actors.

When 13-year-old Abdullah found out that the film had been taken down, he was devastated but added that the BBC had not reached out to him to apologize.

Instead, the organization has been battling further criticism from pro-Israel advocates over payments made to Abdullah.

Pro-Israel group UK Lawyers for Israel announced that it had reported the BBC and the documentary's producers to counter-terror police for possible terror offenses.

The BBC confirmed that the film’s production company, Hoyo Films, had paid the Yazuri family a “limited sum of money for the narration”.

The teenager said he had not received financial remuneration for the documentary beyond money to cover its expenses.

Abdullah al-Yazuri clarified: “In the contract that was signed between the production company...and my mother, there wasn’t any payment for me or my family. However, I had $1,000 transferred to my sister’s account, which were for personal spending, nothing else.”

MEE has also reached out to Hoyo Films for comment regarding the expenses paid to Abdullah and for details of the contract he signed.

Labour MP Kim Johnson told MEE that “Abdullah’s narration offers a crucial perspective that deserves to be heard, not censored.”

She described the decision to pull the documentary as “yet another shocking attempt to silence the truth about what is actually happening in Gaza”.

Johnson added that the case “raises serious questions about editorial independence and the pressure to suppress Palestinian voices at a time when the world needs to bear witness to the reality on the ground.”

British-Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, an emeritus professor of international relations at Oxford, told MEE that the pulling of the film was “only the latest example of the public broadcaster’s regular capitulation to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby”.

“The BBC has good reporters on Israel-Palestine,” Shlaim said, “but its bosses are hopelessly compromised by their pronounced and persistent bias in favor of Israel.

“The reason for this bias is not lack of knowledge but cowardice, the fear of antagonizing Israel and Israel’s friends in high places in Britain.”
By pulling Gaza film, BBC shows it cannot stand up to Israel
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Prominent journalist Owen Jones, who published an investigation into what he called the BBC’s “civil war over Gaza” in December, said the revelations would “further trash confidence” in the broadcaster.

“That the BBC has left the young boy they fed to the wolves to be abused as a consequence of their cowardice, and haven’t even reached out, is scandalous.

“This will further trash confidence in the BBC, which was already at rock bottom for so many.”

Film-maker and journalist Richard Sanders, who produced multiple documentaries on Gaza for Al Jazeera during Israel’s recent war on the enclave, pointed out that “more than 200 journalists have been killed by the Israelis in Gaza”.

It was dangerous, he noted, that “the team that made this are effectively being smeared as Hamas accomplices. And at the heart of the story we have a vulnerable child.”

In a message he addressed to the BBC, Abdullah said: “I did not agree to the risk of me being targeted in any way before the documentary was broadcasted on the BBC. So [if] anything happens to me, the BBC is responsible for it.”

A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC takes its duty of care responsibilities very seriously, particularly when working with children, and has frameworks in place to support these obligations.”

Chris Doyle, chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, said Abdullah’s claims highlight the BBC’s “treatment of Palestinians as a whole”.

“It should have been a priority to look after the children.”

Ultimately, Abdullah remains hopeful that the film will be put up again “and spread all over the world”.

He said he was heartened by the outpouring of support the film has received in Britain, even amid the abuse.

A letter organized by Artists for Palestine UK calling for the documentary to be reinstated has received over 1,000 signatures from media professionals, including prominent figures like Gary Lineker, Juliet Stevenson and Miriam Margolyes.

The group told MEE that the BBC “has completely failed in its duty of care. It is playing politics with the lives of children traumatized by 17 months of genocidal violence.

“This, and not the spurious accusations made against the documentary, is the real scandal here.”

Abdullah said he is grateful to “all of those in the United Kingdom who had supported me, supported the documentary and had protested for the documentary to be put back on the BBC.

“I thank you all from the bottom of my heart, and continue your efforts that hopefully can and will return the movie back up on BBC,” he added.

“I hope that Gaza sees light again, that children of Gaza have a bright future again and everybody in this 260 kilometer spot… sees a better future and a better tomorrow.