Latest news with #DavidCollier
Telegraph
02-05-2025
- Telegraph
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.
Fox News
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Fox News ‘Antisemitism Exposed' Newsletter: Full list of students detained over campus hate
Fox News' "Antisemitism Exposed" newsletter brings you stories on the rising anti-Jewish prejudice across the U.S. and the world. IN TODAY'S NEWSLETTER: - College crackdown: Complete list of students detained amid campus antisemitism- Why high school grads are suddenly sour on Columbia University- '60 Minutes' host ripped for asking ex-hostage ridiculous question TOP STORY: Federal authorities have detained college students and professors at schools across the United States since the Trump administration began its crackdown on alleged Hamas sympathizers and those with expired visas. "They are not just random acts of law enforcement," national security and human rights lawyer Irina Tsukerman told Fox News Digital of the arrests, adding that they are "part of a comprehensive domestic national security strategy that also involves investigation of universities for facilitating illegal activity." Click here for the list of detained students. VIDEO: Columbia University graduates from the School of International and Public Affairs destroyed their diplomas after the school agreed to follow President Donald Trump's orders to combat antisemitism. WATCH HERE: POISON IVY: Students who have been accepted to Columbia University are declining to attend the Ivy League school amid anti-Israel protests that have caused chaos on campus. One college admissions consultant who spoke to the New York Post said 10 college seniors he guided through the process and who were accepted to Columbia have all decided to enroll elsewhere. "This would not have been the case three years ago," said Christopher Rim, CEO of Command Education. "The actual brand has been tarnished." STAHL TACTIC: Several prominent pro-Israel social media accounts have accused "60 Minutes" host Lesley Stahl of being sympathetic to Hamas terrorists following a Sunday night interview she conducted with a hostage recently released by the militant group. Click here to read what Stahl asked Hamas hostage Keith Siegel. G'BYE: Anti-Israel protester Momodou Taal, a Cornell University international graduate student who sued the Trump administration after he was threatened with deportation, is dropping his case and leaving the U.S. voluntarily. The Ivy League student, who holds dual citizenship in the United Kingdom and Gambia, said he decided to leave the country out of fear for his safety. Despite leaving the country, Taal still said, "Long live the student intifada!" GUEST EDITORIAL: British investigative journalist and researcher David Collier exposes how a recent BBC documentary, "Gaza: How To Survive A War Zone," was made with the help and input of a top Hamas official. QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "The BBC's engine room is full of obsessive activists dressed in PRESS gear, all trying to find new stories and new angles that will help shift public opinion further against the Jewish state." - British investigative journalist David Collier. - Looking for more on this topic? Find more antisemitism coverage from Fox News here. - Did someone forward you this email? Subscribe to additional newsletters from Fox News here. - Want live updates? Get the Fox News app here
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
BBC apologizes after featuring Hamas minister's son in Gaza documentary
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BCC) was forced to apologize and issue a clarification after unintentionally profiling a Hamas member's son in a Gaza documentary. On Monday, the network premiered the film "Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone," which followed four young people with ages ranging from 10-24 living in Gaza during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. One of the subjects included 13-year-old Abdullah, who also narrates the film. On Friday, the BBC announced the documentary would not be available on its iPlayer during an investigation. The film soon faced backlash after investigative journalist David Collier revealed that Abdullah was, in fact, the son of Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture. "We have said that @bbcnews has become a propaganda tool of Hamas. Well here is the proof. Sit down and hold on to something," he wrote in an X thread on Tuesday. Bbc News Issues On-air Apology For False Claim Israel Targeting Staff And 'Arab Speakers' At Gaza Hospital Read On The Fox News App On Wednesday, the BBC released a statement saying that it would add a new text to the film clarifying Abdullah's backstory and apologizing for not doing so beforehand. "Since the transmission of our documentary on Gaza, the BBC has become aware of the family connections of the film's narrator, a child called Abdullah," the clarification read. "We've promised our audiences the highest standards of transparency, so it is only right that as a result of this new information, we add some more detail to the film before its retransmission. We apologise for the omission of that detail from the original film." The BBC continued, "The new text reads: '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.'" On Friday, the BBC offered a new statement indicating the documentary had been removed while the network investigates: "Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone features important stories we think should be told - those of the experiences of children in Gaza. There have been continuing questions raised about the programme and in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place." Bbc Editor Says He 'Doesn't Regret One Thing' After False Gaza Hospital Reporting British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy revealed to LBC, a British talk radio station, that she plans to meet with the BBC heads to discuss the film. "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 program," Nandy said. She continued, "These things are difficult, and I do want to acknowledge that for the BBC, they take more care than most broadcasters in terms of the way that they try to portray these things. They've been attacked for being too pro-Gaza, they've been attacked for being anti-Gaza. But it is absolutely essential that we get this right." Click Here For More Coverage Of Media And Culture Multiple British TV figures wrote to the BBC questioning the editorial standards behind the project. As the BBC itself explained, this included a letter from actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, "Strike" producer Neil Blair, former BBC One controller Danny Cohen and producer Leo Pearlman calling for an investigation. "If the BBC was aware that Abdullah Al-Yazouri was the son of a terrorist leader, why was this not disclosed to audiences during the programme?" they wrote. "If the BBC was not aware that Abdullah Al-Yazouri is the son of a terrorist leader, what diligence checks were undertaken and why did they fail?" "Given the serious nature of these concerns, the BBC should immediately postpone any broadcast repeats of the programme, remove it from iPlayer and take down any social media clips of the programme until an independent investigation is carried out and its findings published with full transparency for licence-fee payers," they demanded. The BBC faced repeated backlash for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war and its unwillingness to describe Hamas as "terrorists."Original article source: BBC apologizes after featuring Hamas minister's son in Gaza documentary
Middle East Eye
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
BBC slammed for pulling film that 'humanised Palestinian children'
The BBC has pulled its documentary about children in Gaza from iPlayer after mounting pressure over a featured child being the son of a Palestinian minister, in a move some commentators have slammed as "cowardly". Outrage over Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone reached its highest point on Wednesday and Thursday, with the Israeli ambassador in London complaining to Britain's public broadcaster, and culture secretary Lisa Nandy saying she will "be discussing" the issue with the BBC. Most criticism has focused on the fact, first reported by researcher David Collier, that the documentary's 13-year-old narrator Abdullah Alyazouri is the son of a minister in Gaza's Hamas-run government. Middle East Eye found on Thursday that Dr Ayman Alyazouri, Gaza's deputy agriculture minister, appears to be a technocrat with a scientific background who previously worked for the United Arab Emirates government and studied at British universities. This had not been reported elsewhere in the media. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The BBC said on Friday: "Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone features important stories we think should be told, those of the experiences of children in Gaza. "There have been continuing questions raised about the programme, and in the light of these, we are conducting further due diligence with the production company. The programme will not be available on iPlayer while this is taking place." 'This documentary humanised Palestinian children' Earlier this week a group of 45 prominent Jewish journalists and members of the media, including former BBC governor Ruth Deech, piled on pressure by sending a letter to the broadcaster demanding the film be removed from the iPlayer. The letter referred to the minister as a "terrorist leader". Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in Britain. But others have defended the film itself. Chris Doyle, the director of CAABU (Council for Arab-British Understanding), told Middle East Eye: "It's very regrettable that this documentary has been pulled following pressure from anti-Palestinian activists who have largely shown no sympathy for persons in Gaza suffering from massive bombardment, starvation, and disease." Doyle added: "This documentary humanised Palestinian children in Gaza in a way that gave valuable insights into what life is like in this horrific warzone day in, day out. "Its production was first class and the BBC has to conduct this review in an independent fashion that ensures all perspectives are taken into this account, with the view to getting it back on air as quickly as possible." Prominent film-maker and journalist Richard Sanders, who produced multiple documentaries on Gaza for Al Jazeera during Israel's war on the enclave, said on Thursday that the row was a "huge test" for the BBC. Palestinian deputy minister at heart of BBC Gaza documentary row studied at UK universities Read More » "If it fails to stand firm with the film-makers it will send an appalling signal." Responding to the news that the film was pulled from iPlayer on Friday, he slammed the BBC's move as a "cowardly decision". Alyazouri, the minister at the heart of the row over the documentary, 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 UAE's education ministry, 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.
