The documentary Gaza: Doctors Under Attack was not aired by the BBC, which commissioned it. “Broadcasting this material risked creating a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect of the BBC," it said. This caution is wise: the BBC documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, was narrated by the son of Hamas’s former deputy minister of agriculture, so it was not exactly objective. Then it aired the cry “Death to the IDF” from the Glastonbury stage, which was worse.
Ramita Navai, the reporter of Gaza: Doctors Under Attack, told BBC Radio 4’s Today that Israel is, “a rogue state that is committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing and mass murdering Palestinians”. That is not objectivity either: I would argue it is a short segue from rogue to illegitimate, and a journalist who thinks Israel is illegitimate has no business reporting on it. They should stick to X.
Instead of the BBC, it was Channel 4 that aired Gaza: Doctors Under Attack last week, billed as “forensic investigation.” In reality, it is a typical piece of activist journalism, shocking to watch, and yet filled with elusions. It tells incomplete truths wrapped in the ponderous score of a horror film.
It does the Palestinian cause no service. Within its elusions, Hamas and its murderous intent towards Israelis and Gazans – the original victims of its barbarism – are barely mentioned. The cause of Palestine could thus be dismissed as belonging to extremists, and thus unworthy of support. This is wrong. Half-truths serve no one, and this conflict, refracted into culture wars a world away, is filled with them.
It tells the story of how Israel has destroyed multiple hospitals in Gaza in the last two years and, it alleges, targeted and tortured medics. Al-Shifa hospital was attacked, we are told, to weaken the resolve of Gazans: surely there was a more pressing reason, such as the presence of Hamas fighters there?
Hospitals are protected under humanitarian law but not – and this is mentioned only 40 minutes into the documentary, almost in passing – if they are used for purposes “harmful to the enemy”. Then the protection, which is righteous, is withdrawn. A responsible journalist – one seeking to shed light, not heat – would have put this at the top of their investigation: it is the most important fact. The New York Times has confirmed that Hamas has used Al-Shifa, Gaza’s biggest hospital, for military purposes since before the war and this is abominable.
It was reported that five premature babies died due to lack of electricity, framed in the documentary as Israeli barbarism. Hamas culpability, though, is de-emphasised, soothed away. For the makers of this documentary, this is a war on life itself. Israel attacked the one thing Palestinians needed most, we are told: a healthcare system. A healthcare system is essential, of course; what is even more essential is the removal of a ruling cabal hiding in hospitals and dedicated to the murder of Jewish and Arab Israelis, and any internal opponents it can find.
Some of the doctors profiled support Hamas. The documentary admits this but, in a strange contortion, can’t admit to admitting it. One doctor was arrested on suspicion of terrorism without evidence, we are told. Then we are told he praised the October 7 attacks and has been supportive of militant groups in the past. Which is it?
Released hostages say they were held at Nasser hospital – the documentary tells us this - but they are not interviewed, or even quoted, here. It was put to a doctor working at Nasser that Israeli hostages were held there. He replies, “I didn’t see any Israeli hostages. When I arrived, I went to the operating theatre and stayed working from there. Even if doctors…dealt with the hostages and treated them… does that mean that for saving the life of a hostage or treating one you should be killed or interrogated?” In his telling they were less hostages than patients: elusion again.
We are told that the body of the Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar was found in a tunnel under the European Hospital, but it was not framed as part of a wider, indisputable truth: Hamas operates in hospitals.
This is not a forensic investigation then, but a howl of fury. By all means do this, but do not call it journalism and do not expect the BBC – on one of its better days – to run it. There is nothing on how Hamas embed themselves within civilian areas and fight in civilian clothes; nothing on whether the men shown tied up, or dead, are members of Hamas; nothing on the allegations that Hamas hid fighters among the wounded; nothing on the claims that Hamas is using medics as human shields. Instead of illumination we have demonisation. We are told Israelis watch the bombing of Gaza from a hill in Sderot: the insinuation is – for fun.
I do not shout, as George Orwell’s animals did: four legs good, two legs bad. I cannot say whether the allegations of war crimes made against Israel here are true or untrue: but I can’t trust them from a documentary as shoddy as this. Everything good begins with the truth. It isn’t here.
