Journalist who exposed Hamas link behind BBC Gaza documentary targeted by vandals
A car belonging to a journalist who was the first to raise issues about a BBC documentary on Gaza was vandalised on Saturday.
David Collier was in Tel Aviv when the vehicle at his London home was doused with a 'chemical substance' that stripped its paint.
Police are treating the incident as 'racially aggravated', with specialist hate crime officers reviewing evidence.
Mr Collier, 59, frequently posts about the Israel-Hamas conflict on social media sites.
Earlier this year, he revealed that the narrator in the BBC documentary Gaza: How To Survive a War Zone, was the son of a Hamas government minister – a connection which was not disclosed in the film.
The BBC went on to pull the hour-long documentary from its iPlayer streaming platform and said it 'had not been informed' beforehand of the link between Abdullah Al-Yazouri, the 14-year-old narrator, and Ayman Alyazouri, his father and a senior figure in Hamas.
However, the incident sparked a slew of complaints and the BBC has since launched an investigation to decide whether staff should be sacked over alleged failings.
Mr Collier, who has nearly 233,000 followers on X, claims he now receives death threats on a 'daily basis'.
Last month, he said he was particularly concerned about a message which stated that the sender knew where he lived.
Shortly afterwards, his car was keyed on the driver's side. Mr Collier, a father-of-two, went on to report the incident to the police.
On Saturday night, April 26, – while he was abroad in Tel Aviv – his vehicle was targeted again.
It is believed the incident took place while Mr Collier's 52-year-old wife, 24-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son, were at home.
Mr Collier, who did not want to identify his family out of concern for their safety, told The Telegraph: 'I got a WhatsApp message from my wife, she was very distressed.
'She came out on Sunday afternoon – she would have been going to a supermarket and she noticed immediately that someone had vandalised the car.
'Someone had thrown a chemical substance, which acts like a paint stripper, across the roof, the bonnet and the side of the car.
'It was attacked from about five or six different positions.'
The family, who are based in North London, went on to report the incident to the police.
Although the incident was investigated by hate crime specialist officers, the lack of evidence meant the case has since been closed.
Mr Collier, who has increased security at his property – by fitting CCTV cameras to film the area outside his home – said the car was not in the range of the camera at the time.
And while he said had received 'increased attention' following his posts about the BBC documentary, he said the UK had become a 'deteriorating environment' for Jewish people since war broke out between Israel and Hamas following the October 7 attacks in 2023.
The Community Security Trust (CST), a charity which protects Jewish people in the UK, recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2024, the second-highest total ever reported to the organisation in a single calendar year.
A CST spokesperson said: 'We are aware of the incident and are providing David with support. We urge anyone who has any information to contact the police and CST.'
Mr Collier has said he would rather 'leave the country' than stop researching and reporting on the conflict.
He added: 'The UK's been really nice to my family for quite an extended period of time now. We came 120 years ago and my grandfather fought in the army.'
He added: 'I'm very attached to this country and yet honestly I am having every part of Britain kicked out of me.'
A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed it had received a report of criminal damage.
They said: 'The victim's car was vandalised outside his address. Officers launched an investigation and the report was treated as a racially aggravated criminal damage incident.
'Specialist hate crime officers reviewed CCTV from the area across a five day period.'
The spokesman added that the investigation has been filed with no arrests being made 'due to a lack of positive lines of enquiry' but should further information be discovered, the case could be re-opened.
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