Gaza Documentary Producer Accuses BBC of Trying to Gag Him over Decision to Drop It

London (Quds News Network)- The producer of a film about medics in Gaza that was dropped by the BBC has accused the broadcast of trying to gag him and others over its decision not to show the documentary.

Gaza: Doctors under Attack, which was finally broadcast on Channel 4 on Wednesday night, recounts how hospitals in the territory have been overwhelmed, bombed and raided by Israeli forces during the genocide. Medics recount being detained and tortured. It had originally been due to run on the BBC.

Ben de Pear, the programme’s executive producer and a former Channel 4 News editor, accused the BBC of attempting to stop him talking about its “painful journey” to the screen with the use of legal gagging clauses.

“I rejected and refused to sign the double gagging clause the BBC bosses tried multiple times to get me to sign,” he said in a post on LinkedIn. “Not only could we have been sued for saying the BBC refused to air the film (palpably and provably true) but also if any other company had said it, the BBC could sue us.”

“Not only could we not tell the truth that was already stated, but neither could others. Reader, I didn’t sign it.”

Instead, he said, he spoke out, criticising the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, at a conference in Sheffield over the decision to pull the film.

“All the decisions about our film were not taken by journalists, they were taken by Tim Davie,” he said at the time. “He is just a PR person. Tim Davie is taking editorial decisions which, frankly, he is not capable of making.”

“The BBC’s primary purpose is TV news and current affairs, and if it’s failing on that it doesn’t matter what drama it makes or sports it covers. It is failing as an institution. And if it’s failing on that then it needs new management.”

De Pear’s comments follow the publication of a letter signed anonymously by more than 100 BBC staff criticising the decision to drop the film.

“All too often it has felt that the BBC has been performing PR for the Israeli government and military. This should be a cause of great shame and concern for everyone at the BBC,” the letter said.

The letter also questioned the role of Robbie Gibb, Theresa May’s former spin doctor and a member of the BBC’s board and editorial standards committee.

Gibb led the consortium that bought the Jewish Chronicle in 2020 and, up until August 2024, was a director of Jewish Chronicle Media. The BBC has claimed he had no “formal role” over the decisions made in relation to the Gaza film.

The letter stated, “We are concerned that someone with strong ideological ties and past leadership in a politically aligned media outlet influences BBC decisions—particularly the choice not to air a documentary that exposes attacks on Palestinian medical staff.”

Before dropping the medics documentary entirely, the BBC said it had delayed its broadcast until a report into the making of another documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, had been completed.

A new analysis by the UK’s public broadcaster revealed that the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is “systematically biased against Palestinians.” The study of over 35,000 pieces of content conducted by the Muslim Council of Britain’s Centre for Media Monitoring (CFMM) found that the BBC gives Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage than Palestinian ones.