Palestinian deputy minister at heart of BBC Gaza documentary row studied at UK universities
The Gaza minister who triggered a major row in Britain after his son narrated a BBC documentary previously worked for the UAE's education ministry and studied at British universities, Middle East Eye has found.
Pressure is mounting on Britain's public broadcaster to take down a recent documentary about children in Gaza entitled "Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone".
Outrage has reached new heights in the past two days - with the Israeli ambassador in London complaining to the broadcaster, and Britain's culture secretary Lisa Nandy saying she will "be discussing" the issue with the BBC.
A group of 45 prominent Jewish journalists and members of the media, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, addressed a letter to the broadcaster demanding the film be removed from the iPlayer.
Most criticism has focused on the fact, first reported by researcher David Collier, that the documentary's 13-year-old narrator is the son of a minister in Gaza's Hamas-run government.
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The letter to the BBC refers to the minister, Dr Ayman Alyazouri, as a "terrorist leader".
Numerous reports in the British press have described him as a "terrorist leader", "Hamas leader" and "senior member of Hamas". But who is Alyazouri really?
UK universities and UAE government
Collier has claimed that the minister is related to Dr Ibrahim Alyazouri, the late prominent Hamas leader who was involved in the group's formation.
Middle East Eye has found that Ayman Alyazouri, the deputy agriculture minister in Gaza, appears to be a technocrat with a scientific rather than political background.
Ministers, bureacrats and civil servants in Gaza are appointed by Hamas, while in the West Bank they are appointed by the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
Alyazouri's LinkedIn profile and CV reveal previously unreported details about his background.
Between 1995 and 2003, Alyazouri taught chemistry in a high school in Dubai.
According to his CV, he also studied at British universities, gaining a masters degree in analytical chemistry from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge in 2004.
Alyazouri then did a PhD in environmental analytical chemistry at the University of Huddersfield, which he completed in 2010.
During that time, between 2003 and 2011, he was a specialist in the United Arab Emirates' ministry of education, designing textbooks and editing the science curriculum.
In 2011 he became an assistant deputy minister in Gaza's ministry of education.
His current role as deputy minister of agriculture, which he began in July 2021, involves supervising and supporting "agricultural activities" in Gaza, "especially in the field of crops cultivation, livestock and fishing", according to his LinkedIn profile.
'Senior member of Hamas'
Danny Cohen, the former director of BBC Television, told the Daily Mail on Thursday: "The BBC appears to have given an hour of prime-time coverage to the son of a senior member of the Hamas terrorist group.
"Either they were not aware of the terrorist links because they did not carry out the most basic journalistic checks or the BBC did know and misled audiences about the family's deep involvement with terrorism."
The BBC has apologised for the narrator's family connection, saying it only discovered it after the documentary was aired.
A new text attached to the film online says: "The narrator of this film is 13-year-old Abdullah. His father has worked as a deputy agriculture minister for the Hamas-run government in Gaza. The production team had full editorial control of filming with Abdullah."
Culture secretary Nandy, speaking to LBC about the documentary on Thursday, said: "I watched it last night. It’s something that I will be discussing with them, particularly around the way in which they sourced the people who were featured in the programme."
Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in Britain, but there is no evidence that 13-year-old Abdullah is a Hamas member - or that his narration was influenced by his father.
Abdullah reportedly said he wanted to be part of the BBC documentary "to explain the suffering that people here in Gaza witness with the language that the world understands, English".
It is not illegal in Britain for journalists to interview members of proscribed groups.
British podcasters and former political figures Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart recently interviewed Ahmed al-Sharaa, the leader of Syria and head of the proscribed group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Commentators have pointed out that many people in Gaza have family or other connections to Hamas, which is the governing power.
Anyone working in an official capacity must also work with Hamas.
Prominent film-maker and journalist Richard Sanders, who produced multiple documentaries on Gaza for Al Jazeera during Israel's recent war on the enclave, said that the backlash against the BBC film was "inevitable".
Sanders noted that "Hamas are a core element of Palestinian life".
"They won the last elections and were the government in Gaza," he added. "To exclude anyone in any way connected to them is to silence Palestinians - which, of course, is the aim."
Sanders said the row was a "huge test" for the BBC. "If it fails to stand firm with the film-makers it will send an appalling signal."
MEE has contacted Ayman Alyazouri for comment.
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