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doctors without borders
BBC Rebuked for Canceling Documentary 'Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone'
Hundreds of British artists and media personalities argue that the film "deserves recognition, not politically motivated censorship."
Feb 28, 2025
Hundreds of U.K. artists and media personalities have signed an open letter decrying the British Broadcasting Corporation's removal of a documentary film about the horrifying impacts of Israel's Gaza onslaught on children.
The BBC pulled Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone—which was produced by Hoyo Films—after the broadcaster learned that its 14-year-old narrator was the son of a Hamas official.
Juliet Stevenson, Gary Lineker, Khalid Abdalla, Anita Rani, and Miriam Margolyes are among the more than 800 film, television, and media workers who, as of Friday, have signed the Artists for Palestineletter condemning what signers called the censorship and racism behind the BBC's cancellation.
"We are U.K.-based film and TV professionals and journalists writing in support of the BBC documentary Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone, which aired on February 17 on BBC Two and was subsequently made available on iPlayer," states the letter, whose signatories include a dozen BBC employees.
"This film is an essential piece of journalism, offering an all-too-rare perspective on the lived experiences of Palestinian children living in unimaginable circumstances, which amplifies voices so often silenced. It deserves recognition, not politically motivated censorship," the letter continues.
Why have the BBC apologised for & removed the documentary 'Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone'? Because it went some way to humanising Palestinians. Here some young children flee in terror from Israeli bullets.
[image or embed]
— Saul Staniforth (@saulstaniforth.bsky.social) February 28, 2025 at 3:24 AM
"Beneath this political football are children who are in the most dire circumstances of their young lives," the signers added. "This is what must remain at the heart of this discussion. As program-makers, we are extremely alarmed by the intervention of partisan political actors on this issue, and what this means for the future of broadcasting in this country."
The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 17,000 Palestinian children have been killed and thousands more wounded by Israeli attacks on the coastal enclave, 10,000 of them in the first 100 days of the war, according to the charity Save the Children. The International Rescue Committee published a report last October revealing that as many as 50,000 children in Gaza have been orphaned or separated from their parents.
Hundreds of thousands more children have been forcibly displaced, with some dying from exposure to cold, windy, rainy conditions. Many other Gazan children have been sickened and starved, sometimes to death—their deaths partly attributed to the "complete siege" imposed on the strip by Israel, which is facing genocide charges at the International Court of Justice in the Netherlands.
The Israeli assault has wrought what Save the Children called the "complete psychological destruction" of Gaza's children, 96% of whom feared imminent death, according to a survey conducted last December by the Gaza-based Community Training Center for Crisis Management, and supported by War Child Alliance.
The international charity Doctors Without Borders has called Gaza "the most dangerous place in the world to be a child."
Another documentary about Palestine, No Other Land, has been nominated for an Academy Award but is unavailable to stream in the United States because no distributor was willing to take it.
Aid Group Sounds Alarm Over 'Disturbing' Israeli Rampage in West Bank
"This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza."
Jan 23, 2025
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that Israel's military is applying "lessons" learned during its bombardment of Gaza to recent attacks on the West Bank—and a leading human rights group warned that as in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces' actions are resulting in "significant humanitarian consequences."
Operations like "Iron Wall" in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin and a "surge in settler attacks" that have been backed by the IDF "have heightened insecurity, displacement, and severe restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement," said the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) on Thursday.
Iron Wall began Tuesday, with the IDF launching airstrikes and ground attacks in the West Bank two days after a cease-fire took effect in Gaza.
At least 12 Palestinians have been killed in the Iron Wall attacks and 40 people have been injured, including medical workers, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
After months of warnings from rights organizations that the IDF cut off access to essential services for Gaza residents with a near-total humanitarian aid blockade and the relentless bombardment of the enclave, the NRC said that Israeli forced have "increased checkpoints, roadblocks, and other physical barriers throughout the West Bank."
"These measures further fragment Palestinian communities, restrict access to essential services, and prevent humanitarian agencies, like NRC, from reaching the communities we serve," said the group.
The latest violence in the West Bank is part of a broader trend, with Israel having begun launching airstrikes in the territory after October 7, 2023, for the first time since the Second Intifada in 2000-05.
The IDF launched Iron Wall in Jenin two weeks after a shooting attack that Israel blamed on gunmen in the refugee camp, which has long been a hub for Palestinian resistance groups and is also home to more than 24,000 Palestinians who are registered in the camp.
Katz said in a statement Wednesday that with the Jenin raid, the IDF is applying "the first lesson from the method of repeated raids in Gaza."
"We will not allow the arms of the Iranian regime and radical Sunni Islam to endanger the lives of [Israeli] settlers [in the West Bank] and establish a terrorist front east of the state of Israel," he said.
In addition to the attacks in Jenin, masked Israeli settlers have been filmed setting fire to homes and vehicles in towns across the Israeli-occupied territory in what the Israel-based human rights group B'Tselem called an effort to "impose a 'price tag' for the release of Palestinians" as part of the cease-fire agreement in Gaza.
Residents told Al Jazeera that "constant gunfire and explosions" have been heard in Jenin since Iron Wall began, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) reported that the IDF has left the camp "nearly uninhabitable."
An estimated 2,000 families have been displaced from the Jenin area since December, according to the agency.
"We are seeing disturbing patterns of unlawful use of force in the West Bank that is unnecessary, indiscriminate, and disproportionate. This echoes the tactics Israeli forces have employed in Gaza," said Angelita Caredda, NRC's Middle East and North Africa regional director. "Under international law, Israel must bring its occupation of Palestinian territory to an end as rapidly as possible. Until then, it must fully comply with its obligations as an occupying power, including the protection of civilians."
In addition to airstrikes and ground attacks, the governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, told Agence France-Presse that Israeli military bulldozers have destroyed all roads leading to the camp and to the nearby hospital. Twenty Palestinians from villlages in the Jenin area have been detained since Iron Wall began on Tuesday, according to the governor.
"What we are seeing in Jenin camp is horrific, said one paramedic trained by Doctors Without Borders. "People are targeted while being evacuated, and the wounded cannot be reached by ambulance."
In 2024, Israeli demolitions in the West Bank reached a record high, said the NRC, with 1,768 structures destroyed. IDF soldiers and settlers killed at least 499 Palestinians in the territory last year.
U.S. President Donald Trump has selected at least two nominees for high-level diplomatic positions—Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) for U.N. ambassador and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for ambassador to Israel—who have expressed support for right-wing Israeli officials' claim that Israel has a "Biblical right" to the West Bank.
Amid the settler violence and Jenin raid, Caredda called on the international community to "take decisive action to stop these violations and end the occupation."
"Impunity for serious violations of international law has allowed Israel to unlawfully escalate violence in the occupied West Bank," said Caredda.
Israeli Cabinet OKs Cease-Fire '46,000 Lives Too Late' While Continuing to Bomb Gaza
"While this temporary cessation of fighting and bombing must be both respected and long-term, this is only the beginning of addressing the immense humanitarian, psychological, and medical needs in Gaza."
Jan 18, 2025
As Israel's military continued its 15-month assault that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and decimated the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office confirmed that early Saturday the full Cabinet approved a recently announced cease-fire and hostage-release deal that is set to take effect at 8:30 am local time Sunday.
The 24-8 vote on the three-phase deal negotiated by Egypt, Qatar, and the outgoing Biden and incoming Trump administrations came after the Security Cabinet endorsed it on Friday.
Later Saturday, Netanyahu said that "we will be unable to move forward with the framework until we receive the list of the hostages who will be released, as was agreed. Israel will not tolerate violations of the agreement. Hamas is solely responsible."
Since negotiators announced the agreement on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed over 100 more Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health's figures.
Gaza health officials said Saturday that the Israeli assault has killed at least 46,899, with another 110,725 wounded since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. More than 10,000 people remain missing in the Palestinian region reduced to rubble, and experts warn the official death toll is likely a significant undercount.
"The temporary cease-fire agreement in Gaza is a relief, but it arrives more than 465 days and 46,000 lives too late," Doctors Without Borders said in a Saturday statement. "While this temporary cessation of fighting and bombing must be both respected and long-term, this is only the beginning of addressing the immense humanitarian, psychological, and medical needs in Gaza."
"Israel must immediately end its blockade of Gaza and ensure a massive scale-up of humanitarian aid into and across Gaza so that the hundreds of thousands of people in desperate conditions can begin their long road to recovery," added the group, also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières. "The toll of this hideous war includes the obliteration of homes, hospitals, and infrastructure; the displacement of millions of people that are now in desperate need of water, food, and shelter in the cold winter."
After reaching a cease-fire deal to stop Israel's assault on Lebanon late last year, the IDF was accused of violating it with continued strikes allegedly targeting the political and militant group Hezbollah.
According toDrop Site News: "Egyptian media reported the formation of a joint operations room in Cairo, with representatives from Egypt, Palestine, Qatar, the United States, and Israel, to oversee the Gaza cease-fire and 'ensure effective coordination and follow up on compliance with the terms of the agreement.'"
Israel—whose troops have been armed by the United States—faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its war on Gaza and the International Criminal Court in November issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
After the Israeli Security Cabinet's Friday decision, Kenneth Roth, the former director of Human Rights Watch, said: "Keep in mind that a cease-fire is NOT an amnesty. Senior Israeli officials must still be prosecuted for genocide and war crimes. Otherwise, governments could commit atrocities with impunity by simply agreeing to a cease-fire at the end."
This post has been updated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's later Saturday statement.
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