In Gaza’s ravaged hospitals, doctors in worn scrubs, their faces lined with exhaustion, eyes heavy with grief but steady with resolve – trying to hold life together as everything around them fell apart.
For over 14 months, their efforts were documented, capturing the daily fight to save civilians.
The testimonies of these doctors, filmed amid trauma wards and bombed-out clinics, form the heart of Gaza: Medics Under Fire. It is a rare chronicle that offers a rare window into a collapsing healthcare system under relentless Israeli assault.
The film, produced independently by Basement Films, had been cleared for broadcast on the BBC—legally, editorially, and journalistically—months ago.
Now, without offering a clear reason, the BBC has indefinitely delayed it.
While the BBC is facing mounting criticism for indefinitely postponing the release of the documentary, some insiders suggest the delay is linked to another film called Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone. The latter was pulled after it was revealed its narrator is the son of a Hamas official—an undisclosed familial tie that led to an internal review.
Though no direct admission has been made, insiders and critics suggest that political pressure—whether internal or from pro-Israel lobbying groups—may be shaping the BBC’s caution for shelving Gaza: Medics Under Fire.
What’s the reason?
The BBC claims the delay is linked to an internal review of a different film: Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, a 2025 British documentary.
That film, commissioned by BBC Current Affairs and This World, came under fire after critics noted that Hammash is the son of Yahya al-Yazouri, a deputy agriculture minister in the Hamas-run government in Gaza. The BBC admitted it had failed to disclose this familial connection prior to broadcast.
However, conflating the two films is misleading. Gaza: Medics Under Fire is editorially independent and free of affiliations. It was directed by respected journalists Ben de Pear, Karim Shah, and Ramita Navai. The film contains no political voiceovers—only testimonies from those risking their lives to save others.
WHO regularly visited al-Awda to deliver medical supplies and fuel, but with snipers around and artillery hitting the hospital buildings, supplies were impossible to maintain.
“Not editorial caution, but political suppression”
More than 600 prominent figures—including Susan Sarandon, Juliet Stevenson, and Miriam Margolyes—have signed an open letter demanding the BBC reverse its decision.
“This is not editorial caution. It’s political suppression,” it reads. “No news organisation should quietly decide behind closed doors whose stories are worth telling. This important film should be seen by the public, and its contributors’ bravery honoured.”
And sources now say that the Palestinian medics and whistleblowers featured in the film are now threatening to withdraw their consent if the documentary continues to be buried.
Many risked their lives to speak out. They now fear their testimonies will be erased—by the very platform that promised to share them.
The Guardian reported that a spokesperson for Basement Films said:
“We apologise again to those who trusted us with their stories … Understandably many of the contributors and those who filmed for us in Gaza are starting to reconsider their consent for the film now it is months delayed, despite being signed off and lauded by some senior management at BBC News.”
Moreover, Health Workers 4 Palestine said in a statement: "The health workers featured in this documentary have witnessed countless colleagues being killed, and have risked their lives not only to care for their patients, but to document and expose the relentless targeting by Israel of healthcare infrastructure and personnel."
While expressing solidarity with the medics of Gaza "whose voices are being silenced," the group said their stories are being "buried by bureaucracy and political censorship."
"If the voices of Palestinian doctors aren’t considered credible – just as the voices of Palestinian children were previously dismissed – then whose voices does the BBC consider legitimate?"
Basement Films also criticised the delay and publicly expressed its frustration, stating:
"Every day this film is delayed, the BBC fails in its commitment to inform the public, fails in its journalistic responsibility to report the truth, and fails in its duty of care to these brave contributors."
The filmmakers, their subjects, and a growing number of cultural and political voices continue to demand that the BBC fulfil its duty—not just to editorial review, but to truth.
Are all truths equal?
The UK’s publicly funded broadcaster has been facing criticism in recent years for a perceived pro-Israel slant in its coverage, often accused of foregrounding Israeli government statements while minimising Palestinian perspectives.
The delay also raises deeper concerns about systemic imbalance in how Palestinian life is represented—or excluded—in Western media. As Gaza’s health infrastructure collapses and the death toll rises, shelving a film that centres the lives and losses of Palestinian medics sends a chilling message.
More than 52,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.
As of May 2025, over 1,400 medics have been killed on duty by Israel. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, and surgeons have been bombed in hospitals, crushed beneath rubble, or deliberately targeted while operating clearly marked ambulances.
The UN Commission of Inquiry has stated that these attacks may constitute war crimes and, in some cases, the crime against humanity of extermination. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.
In this context, shelving a film that centres Palestinian doctors is not a neutral act. It contributes to a pattern in Western media in which Palestinian suffering is marginalised or omitted altogether.
The BBC says it will make a decision on the documentary's release “in due course,” but has given no timeline or transparency around the process.
