The BBC is a publicly funded broadcaster in the United Kingdom, mandated to deliver “impartial, accurate, and fair journalism under its Royal Charter.” Yet its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza is routinely accused of being anything but.
Published Jul 07, 2025 | 6:22 PM ⚊ Updated Jul 07, 2025 | 6:22 PM
The unprecedented letter comes in the wake of yet another controversial decision by the publicly funded broadcaster.
Synopsis: Over 100 BBC employees and 300 industry professionals have signed an open letter accusing the UK public broadcaster of anti-Palestinian bias and acting as a PR arm for the Israeli government since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza. The letter follows the BBC’s decision not to air a commissioned documentary, Gaza: Medics Under Fire, for “concerns over impartiality” despite the film passing internal editorial checks.
Over a hundred British Broadcasting Corporation employees, along with 300 other journalists and industry professionals, have signed an open letter accusing the public broadcaster of “performing PR for the Israeli government and military” since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, and of failing to report on “the reality and the context of the war on Palestinians.”
The unprecedented letter comes in the wake of yet another controversial decision by the publicly funded broadcaster: its refusal to air the long-delayed documentary Gaza: Medics Under Fire, originally scheduled for release in July 2025. The film focuses on the plight of medical workers in Gaza.
The broadcaster cited concerns over “creating a perception of partiality” as the reason for shelving it, despite having commissioned it in the first place and confirming that it had passed its own internal editorial checks.
“This hasn’t happened by accident, rather by design. Much of the BBC’s coverage in this area is defined by anti-Palestinian racism. The inconsistent manner in which guidance is applied draws into focus the role of Sir Robbie Gibb, on the BBC Board and BBC’s Editorial Standards Committee. We are concerned that an individual with close ties to the Jewish Chronicle, an outlet that has repeatedly published anti-Palestinian and often racist content, has a say in the BBC’s editorial decisions in any capacity, including the decision not to broadcast Gaza: Medics Under Fire,” the letter reads.
The BBC has refused to broadcast a documentary it commissioned – on the Israeli assault on Gaza’s healthcare system.
History will record that Britain’s national public broadcaster helped legitimise one of the great crimes of our age.
No forgetting, no forgiving. https://t.co/MFBkTj4vD9 pic.twitter.com/EPrfbSatIi
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) June 21, 2025
The letter goes on to state that the cancellation of the film’s broadcast is part of a larger pattern of editorial decisions shaped by bias rather than journalistic integrity.
“We believe the refusal to broadcast the documentary Gaza: Medics Under Fire is just one in a long line of agenda-driven decisions. It demonstrates, once again, that the BBC is not reporting ‘without fear or favour’ when it comes to Israel. We understand that a decision not to broadcast the investigation has been taken by senior BBC management despite the film’s content being signed off in accordance with BBC guidelines and editorial policy,” it reads.
Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was eventually broadcast on another public broadcaster, Channel 4 after the BBC dropped it. Ben de Pear, the executive producer of the film, has accused the BBC of attempting to silence him over decisions related to the documentary.
“We will tell the full story of the painful journey around this film elsewhere; firstly, because we want to ask why it is so difficult to make documentaries about the biggest and worst assault on civilians this century. This should not be so; why should there only be a handful of UK documentaries about Gaza? Why won’t US media commission anything? Why can we watch on our phones the death of tens of thousands, but not on our TVs?” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn.
He further accused the BBC management of attempting to enforce a “double gagging clause,” ostensibly to prevent not only him but others from stating that the BBC refused to air the film.
“Secondly, because we are free to do so because I rejected and refused to sign the double gagging clause the BBC bosses tried multiple times to get me to sign. 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,” he wrote.
“I didn’t sign it, and I spoke the truth at Sheffield, and I felt better. If you work at the BBC you should try it, if you can.”
The BBC is a publicly funded broadcaster in the United Kingdom, mandated to deliver “impartial, accurate, and fair journalism under its Royal Charter.” Yet its reporting on Israel’s war on Gaza is routinely accused of being anything but.
In February, another documentary, Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was pulled from its domestic streaming service, iPlayer, after it was revealed that one of the child narrators father was a deputy minister of agriculture in Gaza’s civil administration, which is governed by Hamas. This led to accusations of “bias”.
The BBC initially stated it would “add some more detail to the film”, saying, “We are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place.”
However, under increasing pressure from pro-Israel critics, the broadcaster decided to remove it entirely.
Meanwhile, a June 2024 report by the Centre for Media Monitoring (CFMM) found that the BBC gave Israeli deaths 33 times more coverage per fatality than Palestinian deaths.
It also found that the broadcaster ran nearly equal numbers of humanising profiles for Israeli and Palestinian victims, despite Palestinian deaths (at least 57,338 since October 2023) outnumbering Israeli fatalities (approximately 1,200) by an order of magnitude.
“Since October 2023, it has become increasingly clear to our audiences that the BBC’s reporting on Israel/Palestine falls short of our own editorial standards. There is a gulf between the BBC’s coverage of what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank and what our audiences can see is happening via multiple credible sources including human rights organisations, staff at the UN and journalists on the ground,” the open letter by BBC employees reads.
“Whilst there has been some exceptional content from some areas of the BBC (within documentary and from some individual correspondents for example), news in particular has failed to report the reality and the context of the war on Palestinians. 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.”
Critics on social media also regularly highlight the BBC’s use of language in its reports concerning Israel and Gaza, noting that terms such as “murder” or “massacre” are often applied to Israeli deaths, while Palestinian casualties are typically described as having been “killed” or simply “died”, while consistently avoiding mention of Israel as the perpetrator.
The broadcaster has also been criticised for not providing adequate historical context on Israel’s occupation of, and enforcement of apartheid in, the Palestinian territories, as well as the violent establishment of the Israeli state prior to October 2023.
It has further been noted for omitting the Israeli government’s openly genocidal rhetoric and of rarely challenging official claims.
In contrast, the BBC repeatedly reports Palestinian deaths and casualties with the caveat “according to the Hamas-run ministry” – a phrase critics have alleged to be a deliberate attempt to undermine the Palestinian perspective.
Hamas Health Ministry and BBC
byu/Cityof_Z inIsraelPalestine
According to the CFMM report, this is not accidental but institutional.
“The report reveals a systematic omission of key historical and contemporary context that has acquired an institutional quality at the BBC. Whether this be overlooking the genocidal rhetoric of Israeli leaders – now referenced in war crimes charges against them – or properly scrutinising Israeli claims and denials in the face of ethnic cleansing and other war crimes, the BBC have simply underreported what is now overwhelmingly being seen as a ‘live-streamed genocide’ and crimes against humanity,” the CFMM report said.
The open letter by employees essentially corroborate the CFMM report.
“Despite these failings, there has been a major shift within public discourse in recent months. Increasingly the scale of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians are being understood by the public as well as many of our parliamentarians. The BBC’s editorial decisions seem increasingly out of step with reality. We have been forced to conclude that decisions are made to fit a political agenda rather than serve the needs of audiences. As industry insiders and as BBC staff, we have experienced this first hand. The issue has become even more urgent with recent escalations in the region. Again, BBC coverage has appeared to downplay Israel’s role, reinforcing an ‘Israel first’ framing that compromises our credibility,” the open letter reads.
(Edited by Dese Gowda)
