The Film the BBC Wouldn’t Air
Question Everything
Brian Reed
4.6 • 707 Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2025
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two veteran journalists set out to document Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system: hospitals attacked, medical workers killed, doctors detained without charge. The BBC commissioned the film. Then pulled it.
Sometimes killing a story is routine. Sometimes it’s a scandal, even immoral.
In this episode, producer Sophie Kazis pulls back the curtain, and goes inside the edits, the delays, and the mounting pressure that shaped the fate of this film.
You can watch the film the BBC wouldn’t air, “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack,” on Zeteo.com.
“Question Everything” is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.
Guests:
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Ramita Navai: Award-winning British-Iranian investigative journalist, documentary maker and author.
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Ben de Pear: Award-winning British journalist; former editor, Channel 4 News; founder and executive producer, Basement Films.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It was April 2020, and Ramida Navai and Ben-D-Pair were reporting on Israel's attacks on hospitals and health care workers in Gaza. |
| 0:15.3 | The Israeli military had just completed a two-week raid of the largest medical complex in Gaza, El Shifa Hospital. Doctors, patients, |
| 0:23.1 | and people who were taking sheltered inside the building were killed. The facility was in ruins. |
| 0:28.3 | Targeting hospitals and medical personnel intentionally, that violates international law, |
| 0:32.8 | and it could be a war crime. And as the weeks went on, Israel appeared to be doing this more and more. Ramida and |
| 0:38.6 | Ben are veteran journalists. They wanted to get a team on the ground in Gaza to see what was |
| 0:43.2 | happening to health care facilities and get it out to the world. They partner with the BBC to produce |
| 0:48.6 | an hour-long documentary film, which will give the story a huge audience and resources. |
| 0:54.0 | This is Ramita. |
| 0:55.5 | At the time, I absolutely believed in the BBC. |
| 0:59.7 | There are great people at the BBC, and I still believe in it as an organization. |
| 1:03.4 | But I really, really believed in it fully then. |
| 1:07.3 | But as Ramita and Ben started to reach out to people in Gaza, to local journalists who could |
| 1:12.2 | help them report there, because Israel doesn't let outside reporters in, as well as to sources, |
| 1:17.3 | to doctors, medics, and others. |
| 1:19.4 | All these Palestinians told us that they thought the BBC would never run our film, and we |
| 1:24.3 | really had to try and persuade them to talk to us because they didn't and don't |
| 1:29.8 | trust the BBC. |
| 1:31.2 | And I really persuaded people. |
| 1:33.4 | You know, there was a case where I got on the phone to persuade someone. |
| 1:37.1 | We were in the West Bank. |
| 1:38.9 | And I said, listen, I'm going to pass you over. |
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