BBC strikes deal with Israeli family to film at home after October 7 without consent

The BBC has reached a deal with an Israeli family who survived the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, after a team of journalists entered their badly damaged home without permission.

A BBC News team, including international editor Jeremy Bowen, entered the home of an Israeli family on the Gaza border and filmed inside the property in the days after the deadly attacks.

They filmed personal photos of the family’s children at a time when many of their friends and relatives still did not know whether they had survived, the Jewish News reported.

A BBC spokesperson said that although they do not usually comment on specific legal issues, they were pleased to have reached an agreement in this matter.

Tzeela Horenstein said gunmen threw a grenade at her husband Simon during the Hamas attack on the village of Netiv HaAsara early on the morning of October 7.

The couple and their two young children only survived because the door to their house twisted and stuck when the attackers tried to blow it up with explosives, she told the Jewish News: who was the first to report the story.

She said: “Not only did terrorists break into our house and try to murder us, but then the BBC team entered again, this time with a camera as a weapon, without permission or consent.

“It was a new intrusion into our lives. We felt like everything that was still under our control had been taken away from us.”

The Jewish News reported that the company had paid a financial settlement of £28,000 to the family.

The war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which around 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage.

Since then, more than 71,260 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry.