Social Media Lash Out at BBC For Gaza Film

CrossFireArabia
Culture
March 7, 2025

The BBC is facing growing criticism for “failing in its duty of care” to the 13-year-old Palestinian narrator of a Gaza documentary as he has reportedly experienced intense online abuse following the BBC’s decision to withdraw the film.

The Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone documentary sheds light on the experiences of children in Gaza amid Israel’s genocide war through the eyes of narrator Abdullah al-Yazuri. However, it was removed from the BBC iPlayer, after a pro-Israel campaign centered on al-Yazuri’s relationship with a minister in Gaza’s Hamas-run government.

This is what the BBC Editorial guidelines say about protecting children that it works with. Abdullah, the child in the Gaza doco, says that after the film was dropped he and his family received online threats. He says, the BBC is responsible for his welfare. He’s right: https://t.co/t946KSKwv5 pic.twitter.com/PaEozxyW9u
— Sangita Myska (@SangitaMyska) March 6, 2025

Abdullah’s father Ayman al-Yazuri has been labeled by media as a “Hamas chief” while he is a technocrat with a scientific rather than political background, who has previously worked for the UAE’s education ministry and studied at British universities.

Fears for Safety

Speaking exclusively to Middle East Eye (MEE) last week, the child explained that he and his family have been the targets of online abuse, adding that the affair has caused him serious “mental pressure” and made him fear for his safety.

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

The boy also said the BBC had not reached out to him to apologize.

“Hamas Royalty”

His father has also denied claims that he and his son are “Hamas royalty” in an interview this week with MEE.

His comments came after pro-Israel activist David Collier alleged that Abdullah was the son of a deputy minister in Gaza’s government and was related to a co-founder of Hamas, Ibrahim al-Yazuri, who died in 2021.

The father is a civil servant in Gaza’s government – which is administered by Hamas.

Many Palestinians in Gaza have family or other connections to Hamas, which runs the government. This means that anyone working in an official capacity must also work with Hamas.

Collier, whose revelations sparked a national scandal, described Abdullah as the “child of Hamas royalty”, a claim later repeated by mainstream British newspapers.

The father said that his full name was Ayman Hasan Abdullah al-Yazuri, whereas the Hamas founder’s full name was Ibrahim Fares Ahmed al-Yazuri. He added that his father was named Hasan and died in 1975.

“Our family is not as some claim,” he told MEE, insisting he was not “Hamas royalty”.

“There are many individuals within our family who are affiliated with Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), including some in leadership positions within these movements.”

Sparking Debate

The child’s interview with MEE about his experiences has sparked a debate on social media on media ethics and the BBC’s responsibility to protect the children it works with.

“I posted about this concern shortly after the BBC pulled this documentary,” said Chris Doyle, chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, responding to Abdullah’s video.

Several social media users have accused the BBC of exposing the child’s life to danger, and say the broadcaster has a responsibility to ensure his safety.

They have also highlighted Section 9 of the BBC’s editorial guidelines concerning children and young people as contributors, which states that the BBC “must take due care over the physical and emotional welfare and the dignity of under-18s who take part or are otherwise involved in our editorial content, irrespective of any consent given by them or by a parent, guardian or other person acting in loco parentis. Their welfare must take priority over any editorial requirement”.

There are also guidelines in the section that dictate that if a person under 18 is suspected to be at risk in the course of their work, “the situation must be referred promptly to the divisional Working with Children Adviser or, for independent production companies, to the commissioning editor”.

Section 9 also states that “procedures, risk assessments, and contingencies for the impact of participating on an individual’s emotional and mental well-being and welfare may be appropriate in some circumstances”.

Others also argued that the removal appeared to be another example of media bias against Palestinians according to the Quds News Network.

CrossFireArabia

Dr. Marwan Asmar holds a PhD from Leeds University and is a freelance writer specializing on the Middle East. He has worked as a journalist since the early 1990s in Jordan and the Gulf countries, and been widely published, including at Albawaba, Gulf News, Al Ghad, World Press Review and others.

Culture

Beirut Weeps For a Poet

CrossFireArabia
April 16, 2026

Lebanon mourns Khatoun Salma, a Lebanese national poet who was killed along with her husband in an Israeli airstrike that targeted their home in the Tallet al-Khayat neighborhood of Beirut Wednesday, 8 April.

Rasha al-Amir, publisher of Dar al-Jadeed, announced that the bodies of Khatoun and her husband were recovered from the rubble, Thursday morning.

Lebanese journalist Maha Salma also mourned her sister Khatoun on her Instagram account, writing: “My dear sister is in God’s care. May God grant me patience in the pain of her loss and the burning of my heart and soul.”

Poet and playwright Yahya Jaber wrote a tribute to Khatoun on Facebook, saying: “Yesterday, the Israeli airstrike cut down a poet with its sharp scissors, a poet of delicate Arabic.” Under the rubble, the conjunction “waw,” the plural “waw,” the feminine plural “nun,” the feminine suffix “ta,” the definite article “al-“: a massacre of language at the hands of language. Jaber attached a picture of the building where Khatoun lived to his post, saying:

“Here is the Khayat Hill building, and here on one of these balconies, we used to stay up late with Khatoun and her husband, Muhammad Karsht, in the late 198s, spinning yarns of laughter and sewing memories. We would recite poetry and remember our city, Tyre, and love Beirut, the capital.”

Lebanese poet Majida Dagher wrote on her Facebook page in mourning for Khatoun: “Under the rubble of her house in Khayat Hill, they found a poet lying among her shattered rhymes. The death of a poet in an airstrike on Beirut makes you feel that war is very, very close. The sound of bones breaking has become louder, and the smell of blood deeper.

Salma fell from the heights of poetry before she could bid farewell to ‘the last inhabitant of the moon.'” She thought Beirut was her tent, Beirut the roof of her poem, where she would hide, “embracing a woman waiting” for the dust to settle. But the dust became the tent of a new Beirut, a Beirut weeping, broken, martyred.

Salma, who studied Arabic literature at the American University of Beirut, published two collections of poetry, “I Embraced a Woman Waiting” in 2009 and “The Last Inhabitants of the Moon” in 2012, both with the Lebanese publishing house Dar Al-Jadeed. She first gained recognition in the 1970s, during her secondary school years, when she won a poetry prize. Later, at the beginning of this century, she became known in cultural circles for her relatively small but distinguished poetic output and her academic pursuits, which included studies in Sufism and Sufi mystics.

She combined profound knowledge with poetic sensitivity. She left her mark on the Lebanese cultural scene with a unique poetic voice, manifested in her literary works that carried the pain of humanity, exile, and memory. With her tragic passing, Lebanon loses a literary and human figure who wrote of the wound in a language that resembled nothing but truth.

Culture

Al Bahri: The Man Who Set Palestinian Theater

CrossFireArabia
March 14, 2026

He is a playwright and author of 12 plays, nearly 20 novels, and numerous translations. Jamil Habib Afara (al-Bahri) was known as the “Father of Theater.” He was born in 1895 in Haifa and his family name dates back to the mid-18th century, as his ancestor owned a merchant fleet that sailed the Mediterranean between Haifa, Acre, and Tripoli. This is where his family name originated.

He showed early interest in literature and writing. He and his brother, Hanna, were keen to revitalize the literary and intellectual scene in Haifa, establishing the National Library there in 1922. He first published the “Zahrat al-Jamil” (The Beautiful Flower) and later “al-Zahra” (The Flower) which was initially a weekly publication that later became a bi-weekly and continued publication for about nine months after his death in 1931. His last piece was

a journalistic investigation into the execution of the three martyrs: Muhammad Jamjoum, Fuad Hijazi, and Ata al-Zeer, in the city of Acre in 1930. He dedicated his time and his newspaper that day to the souls of these martyrs, leading with: “The terrible hour in Haifa and all of Palestine: Let us commemorate those who gave their lives for the homeland.” A large funeral was held for him, and poems and eulogies were recited and published in the Palestinian press, such as the “Al-Karmel” and “Falastin,” newspapers.

The Department of Culture of the Palestine Liberation Organization posthumously awarded him the Jerusalem Medal for Culture and Arts in 1990, and the Palestinian Ministry of Culture reprinted his first book, “The History of Haifa,” in 2022.

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Social Media Lash Out at BBC For Gaza Film

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