Gary Lineker among celebrity signatories of letter criticising BBC for dropping controversial Gaza documentary

Gary Lineker is among a raft of famous names who have signed a letter criticising the BBC for dropping a controversial documentary about Gaza after it was revealed that the film’s narrator had family ties to Hamas.

Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, originally broadcast last week on BBC Two, aimed to document the war in the Strip through the eyes of its young people.

But controversy erupted when investigator and campaigner David Collier found that one of the teen’s prominently featured, Abdullah Al-Yazouri, was the son of a minister in the Hamas government.

The BBC has since pulled the documentary from all of its platforms, including iPlayer, after being accused of “whitewashing Hamas propaganda”.

And a wave of allegations are still emerging – with a report yesterday from the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (Camera) sharing a review of some of the Arabic interviews used in the programme.

Camera claimed that the discussions had been incorrectly translated to remove references to “jihad” and changing interviewees’ criticism of “Jews” to that of “Israelis”.

Yet more than 500 media figures have now called on the BBC to reinstate the documentary in a letter to BBC executives, including director general Tim Davie.

The letter, seen by the Guardian, was signed by former Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker, who stepped down from the corporation’s flagship football programme following a row about his social media posts, in which he criticised the then-governments immigration policies.

The erstwhile Leicester City striker has also previously been outspoken in his criticism of Israel, including reposting a call for the Jewish State to be barred from international football tournaments.

Lineker later characterised his stance as “anti-Israeli government” and denied accusations of antisemitism, saying: “I’m not anti-anybody. I’m anti-bad people and there are really bad people involved in this.”

He was joined as a signatory by celebrities like Miriam Margolyes, Bridgerton star India Amarteifio and award-winning actress Juliet Stevenson.

The letter described the controversial documentary as “an essential piece of journalism offering an all-too-rare perspective on the lived experiences of Palestinians”.

It also claimed that criticism of the film was based on “racist assumptions and weaponisation of identity”, adding: “This broad-brush rhetoric assumes that Palestinians holding administrative roles [like Al-Yazouri’s father] are inherently complicit in violence – a racist trope that denies individuals their humanity and right to share their lived experiences.”

Moreover, the signatories argued that the criticism of Abdullah’s role violated “core safeguarding principles” and that it was an example of “weaponising family associations to discredit a child’s testimony”, which they described as “unethical and dangerous”.

A BBC spokesperson said: “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone features important stories we think should be told – those of the experiences of children in Gaza.”

They continued: “There have been continuing questions raised about the programme and in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place.”