New footage shows the BBC’s ‘volunteer paramedic’ posing with Hamas terrorists, waving guns, and leading jihadist chants — none of which app
by Jonathan Sacerdoti
The BBC's long-awaited editorial review of its documentary Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has finally been published. Far from offering a rigorous examination of its journalistic conduct, the report reads like a desperate institutional whitewash. It focuses primarily on the film’s main narrator, Abdullah Al-Yazouri, acknowledging a breach of BBC guidelines for failing to disclose that he is the son of a Hamas minister. But totallu overlooked in the report is the film’s other key child protagonist: Zakaria.
I can now reveal new and previously unseen footage and photographs of Zakaria that fundamentally change the way he should have been portrayed. These materials expose a wider reality the BBC chose to ignore — one that directly contradicts the documentary’s narrative of Palestinian children in Gaza leading regular, Western-style lives interrupted only by the disruption of Israeli military action.
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Zakaria is presented in the film as a heroic child volunteer paramedic. He is portrayed as a brave and resourceful 11-year-old, volunteering to help amid the chaos of war. The film’s narrator, himself the son of a Hamas official, tells viewers: “Even if you’re still a child, you have to find a way to fit in. Zakaria is 11. He’s living on his own at the hospital. He’s a hustler.” Zakaria himself says, “I became a volunteer. You get to know journalists, get to know doctors, get to know paramedics.”
To any objective viewer, this is clearly a scene of make-believe: a child encouraged by adults to play-act in adult roles. As a paramedic, Zakaria is ineffective, often getting in the way. But the adults humour him. An ambulance driver gives him the task of filling a water bottle. Another adult asks how many “martyrs” he’s seen. Later, he is shown “helping” journalists reporting from the hospital.
I can now reveal that Zakaria is indeed regularly engaged in this kind of role-play, not just with ambulances and journalists, but also with terrorism and armed extremism. He has been repeatedly filmed and photographed in direct, affectionate contact with masked Hamas terrorists, holding weapons, waving guns, and leading pro-terrorist chants with other children. These images and videos have been circulated on social media accounts run by so-called ‘journalists’ in Gaza, and uncovered by ‘Gazawood’. These accounts are known for publishing staged or manipulated footage designed to appeal to Western audiences and media outlets. The BBC film explains none of this.
Glorification of violence
Like many Palestinian children, Zakaria is encouraged by the adults around him to glorify violence, religious war, guns, and terrorism.
In one video, Zakaria stands before five other children, seated and listening as he brandishes a gun (or replica gun). He instructs them to chant: “Allahu Akbar wa lillah al-hamd” (God is greatest and praise be to God)
Then continues:
“Listen up. Say this slogan: ‘Put the sword against the sword. We are the sons of Muhammad Deif, the Hamas emblem.’” An adult filming him asks, “Who are you?” Zakaria replies, “I am Abu Al-Zayek from the logistics services.”
Here he is play-acting not as a paramedic, but as a terrorist logistics leader.