British film on Gaza aired despite co-producer’s praise for Hamas

Britain’s public television network Channel 4 aired a documentary film about Gaza despite the fact that its co-producer celebrated the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and glorified a terrorist who murdered seven Israeli civilians on Holocaust Memorial Day, CAMERA-UK Arabic reported on Tuesday.

CAMERA-UK, the division of the U.S.-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) in the United Kingdom, is dedicated to “fair, accurate and balanced coverage of Israel in the British media,” as stated on its website.

The film, titled “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack,” presents itself as a “forensic examination” of the conduct of soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces and portrays Israel as systematically targeting health-care workers, said CAMERA UK co-editor Adam Levick.

The BBC initially commissioned the film, but dropped it due to concerns regarding the social-media posts of one of the journalists who was involved in the project, according to The Telegraph.

The documentary was criticized for consistently downplaying evidence showing Hamas using medical facilities to foment its terrorist activities, according to CAMERA UK.

Channel 4, however, defended its decision to air the film by claiming it had undergone “rigorous fact-checking and extensive compliance processes,” the statement continued.

“That Channel 4 aired the film despite its producer’s celebration of terrorism targeting Israelis is a disturbing failure of journalistic standards. The very least Channel 4 should have done was inform audiences that the film’s producer has a well-established anti-Israel bias that undermines the credibility of the film,” Levick was quoted as saying.

In the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist invasion of Israel, Osama al-Ashi, a co-producer of the film, posted several messages on his Instagram account praising the massacre. In one video, footage of Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Envelope is accompanied by joyful music.

In another video, Ashi and his friends apparently swipe through photos depicting slain Israeli civilians with expressions of excitement.

Moreover, on Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day in April 2023, Ashi honored a Palestinian who had murdered seven civilians, including a 14-year-old boy, as a “martyr.”

He also celebrated a 2016 attack in Hebron in which a rabbi and father of 10 was gunned down, according to CAMERA UK.

A spokesperson for CAMERA Arabic said that “Al-Ashi’s social-media record, in which he celebrates the murder of Israeli civilians, suggests both a strong anti-Israel bias and that he is unable to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants in his own community. His journalism is, therefore, fundamentally compromised. That Channel 4 chose to air his Gaza war documentary for British audiences is alarming.”

The spokesperson continued: “A respectable outlet in this situation would never claim to have conducted a thorough investigation, then aired a propaganda piece and defended it. The failure of Channel 4 to disclose to its viewers that the film’s co-producer has repeatedly celebrated attacks against Israelis constitutes an unacceptable disregard for professionalism.”