By NewWorker correposndent.

Hundreds of film, TV and media professionals have condemned censorship and racism after the BBC removed a documentary about the children of Gaza. In a letter to BBC executives, they criticised the decision as “racist” and “dehumanising”, blaming pressure from pro-Israel groups. Billed as “following the lives of four young people trying to survive the Israel-Hamas war as they hope for a ceasefire – a vivid and unflinching view of life in a warzone”, the documentary has now been pulled by the BBC.

Gary Lineker and Miriam Margolyes are among more than 800 media figures who have condemned the BBC’s decision to pull a documentary about children’s lives in Gaza.

The BBC says it removed Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone from iPlayer while it carried out “further due diligence” after discovering that the young narrator was the son of a Hamas official.

Zionists, including the Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely, had written to the BBC asking how a child with alleged family ties to Hamas was allowed to be the focus of a documentary about the lives of ordinary Palestinians.

The open protest letter published by Artists for Palestine UK criticised what the signatories said was a “racist” and “dehumanising” campaign targeting the documentary. It called on the BBC to reject efforts to have the film permanently removed or “subjected to undue disavowals” saying that surrendering to efforts to stop its return to iPlayer would indicate “racialised smears against Palestinians outweigh journalistic ethics and public interest”.

The signatories also warned against intrusive scrutiny of Abdullah Al-Yazouri, a 14- year-old child who narrated Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone. His father, Dr Ayman Al-Yazouri, served as Gaza’s deputy agriculture minister – a civil service role concerned with food production.

“Almost half of Gaza’s population are children. What they have experienced over the past 17 months is something no child deserves to ever go through” said Liam O’Hare, an award-winning documentary producer/director who signed the letter. “As journalists and filmmakers we have a duty to help tell their story and that’s what this film did so brilliantly. The BBC cannot allow a politicised campaign to succeed in silencing the children of Gaza.”

Artists for Palestine UK (APUK) is a growing network of artists and cultural workers standing together in support of Palestinian liberation and for a just resolution for all in Israel/Palestine, including Palestinian refugees.

The campaign that was launched in 2015 believes that those who work in the arts have a responsibility to consider the impact of their work when engaging in a situation of radical inequality.

APUK says that the arts are of particular significance where a people’s history, cultural heritage and future are under constant threat of erasure, and it believes that the arts have an important role to play in connecting audiences with Palestinian experience.

It opposes all forms of racism, including anti-Arab racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism.

“The UK film and TV industry will no longer be intimidated by those whose sole mission it is to censor the voices of the many who are defending the rights of children, the marginalized and those in desperate need. All stories have the right to be told and journalistic scrutiny should not be at the whim of those who deem certain lives unequal,” said letter signatory Nada Issa, an award-winning producer/director and journalist who is part Palestinian and Lebanese. We whole-heartedly agree!