BBC Invokes Iconic War Photos in Film Calling for Western Journalists to Enter Gaza
The BBC, AFP, AP, and Reuters have collaborated on a film that uses powerful news photographs from past conflicts to demand access to Gaza.
“One image of a child burned by napalm, brought home the horror of the Vietnam War,” says narrator David Dimbelby in reference to The Terror of War or ‘Napalm Girl’ taken by Nick Ut.
It also refers to images of the D-Day landing where photographers like Robert Capa were present, photographs of the Ethiopian famine, the ‘Tank Man’ photo in Tiananmen Square, the Rwandan genocide, the photo of the little Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach in 2015, and the war in Ukraine.
“But when it comes to Gaza, the job of reporting falls solely to Palestinian journalists who are paying a terrible cost, leaving fewer to bear witness,” says Dimbelby.
Since Israel began its attacks on Gaza after the October 7 massacre, international media have had extremely limited access, and recently no Western journalists have been allowed in at all.
As the BBC mentions, it has meant that the job of documenting the war has been exclusively led by Palestinian photographers. This is fraught with issues as they have often been accused of being partisan or even embedded with Hamas itself.
“As journalists, we record the first draft of history. But in this conflict, reporting is falling solely to a small number of Palestinian journalists, who are paying a terrible cost,” says CEO of BBC News Deborah Turness.
“It is almost two years since October 7th when the world witnessed Hamas’ atrocities. Since then, a war has been raging in Gaza but international journalists are not allowed in. We must now be let into Gaza. To work alongside local journalists, so we can all bring the facts to the world.”
The film made by the BBC and co-signed by three major photo agencies was premiered in New York on Wednesday September 24 at an event hosted by the Committee to Protect Journalists, to coincide with the United Nations General Assembly.
Numerous Palestinian photographers and journalists with links to major Western photo agencies have died since the war began, but Israel often claims that the dead were Hamas operatives.
