The BBC has reached a settlement with a Jewish family who survived the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel after a news crew filmed inside their destroyed home.
BBC Settlement with Family
The reporting team, which included senior correspondent Jeremy Bowen, entered the Horenstein family’s home in the days following the attacks in 2023.
A BBC spokesperson said Friday the organization is “pleased to have reached an agreement in this case,” but does not generally comment on specific legal issues.
Tzeela and Simon Horenstein and their two young children survived the attack when a door militants attempted to blast open became jammed. At the time the BBC crew filmed in their wrecked home, many of the family’s friends and relatives did not know if they were alive.
Tzeela Horenstein told the Jewish News that the BBC crew’s presence felt like a second “intrusion,” stating, “but then the BBC crew entered again, this time with a camera as a weapon, without permission or consent.” She added the experience left the family feeling as if “everything that was still under our control had been taken from us.”
The Jewish News reported the BBC agreed to pay the family £28,000.
Recent BBC Editorial Issues
The BBC has faced other recent editorial challenges. Former US president Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the BBC seeking $10 billion in damages over the editing of a 2021 speech before the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In November, the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, announced his resignation following the edit. In October, the UK’s media regulator Ofcom ruled against the BBC over a documentary featuring narration by a boy later revealed to be the son of a Hamas official, a link the broadcaster failed to disclose.
Ofcom stated the omission constituted “a significant source of deception,” fueling accusations of editorial bias.
Hamas’s attacks on southern Israel sparked a war in Gaza. A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has been in place since Oct. 10.
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