Did a Hamas actor appear in that discredited BBC documentary about Gaza? It seems hard to believe, but then the notion that Auntie would end up at the centre of a criminal investigation on suspicion of transferring funds to a proscribed terrorist group has already taken us into the realm of absurdity.
Only it hasn’t, has it? We have been inhabiting that parallel reality ever since Hamas broke through into southern Israel and the world, led by our national broadcaster, responded by condemning the victims. Even so, the presence of a Hamas actor in the shameful documentary would mark a new low.
Consider the clip of the deleted documentary above, posted on X by an account called @Gazawood1. It shows a fire that was purportedly the result of an Israeli attack on civilians. Such fires have indeed taken place, such as the one near Rafah last May when two 17lb munitions were deployed to kill two senior Hamas combatants. This set off an unintended secondary explosion nearby, which could have been a hidden weapons cache.
Nonetheless, on the face of it, this footage does not seem hugely convincing. Put it this way: if you watch the scene assuming that the blaze was staged and the people involved were actors, you will see nothing that convinces you to the contrary. Which brings us to the people in the clip.
The man with the red arrow above his head bears a remarkable similarity to Saleh Aljafarawi, a 26-year-old Hamas supporter and professional social media influencer who earned the nickname Mr Fafo (which stands for “Fuck Around and Find Out”). He has appeared in numerous staged scenes, posing as an anguished father, a journalist, a terrorist, a musician, a tour guide and a medic. He has been filmed receiving complex medical treatment and has died at least twice.
The man was an online legend within five weeks of October 7, when he was the subject of this article in Tablet. Since then, his fame has grown and he has become a fixture of what has been provocatively called “Pallywood”. (I am not by any means denying the true suffering in Gaza, just highlighting the undisputed fakery that also takes place for propaganda purposes.)
At some point, somebody online collated a few of his many faces. Here they are:
It is, I suppose, almost impossible to establish beyond doubt that the man in the clip from the discredited documentary is indeed Mr Fafo. But given the impeccable journalistic standards at the corporation when it comes to Gaza, our friend has featured in BBC News broadcasts before.
Below is one such example, introduced with a sombre warning that some of the images may be “distressing”. It was posted on X by @MicheleGoldsmi6.
All of this underlines the point: when trust in our most important institutions is squandered by their blatant partisanship, you just don’t know what to believe. The BBC, for example, and other liberal broadcasters, have reported breathlessly over the past 17 months on the spectre of famine in Gaza. Personally, I have argued consistently, for example here and here, that this was not the case. It was a lonely position to take at the time. But the claims of starvation were rather contradicted by the scenes of abundance in the discredited documentary.
You can’t watch it any more, as the corporation has been forced to delete it. So below is an example of Gaza, which I — or rather my wife — took from a Snapchat video this morning. Filmed from a drone, crowds of people can be seen eating and celebrating outside of the hours of fast, with full electricity, decorations and festivities. (Several, it must be said, are rather corpulent.)
The digital revolution has thrust us into a world of misinformation, with the rise of AI just making things worse. At times like these, above all else we need reliable and professional sources of news in which we can have confidence.
The disgrace that hangs like a cloud over the BBC this weekend is more than a failure of standards. It is a dangerous betrayal. It is the final indictment of the veracity of the broadcaster’s coverage of the war in Gaza, leaving us in a world where the truth is more elusive than ever.
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