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The BBC has paid £28,000 in compensation to an Israeli family who survived the October 7 attack after a film crew went into their destroyed home without permission.
As first reported by Jewish News, a BBC crew led by senior correspondent Jeremy Bowen entered the home of the Horenstein family in the small village of Netiv HaAsara in the days after the attack.
The BBC team even filmed personal photographs of their children at a time when many of the family’s friends and relatives did not know if they were alive.
Tzeela Horenstein said Hamas terrorists attacked the village early in the morning and threw a grenade at her husband Simon.
The couple and their two young children only survived because their home’s door twisted and jammed when the attackers tried to blow it out with explosives, she said.
She told Jewish News: “Not only did terrorists break into our home and try to murder us, but then the BBC crew entered again, this time with a camera as a weapon, without permission or consent.
“It was another intrusion into our lives. We felt that everything that was still under our control had been taken from us.
“Even in times of war there are limits, and when a media outlet crosses them, it must be held responsible.”
BBC News issued a written apology to the family and paid them £28,000 in compensation after legal proceedings were started in Israel, Jewish News reported.
A BBC spokesperson said: “While we do not generally comment on specific legal issues, we are pleased to have reached an agreement in this case.”
Last year, Ofcom sanctioned the BBC for breaching the Broadcasting Code in its Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone documentary after the corporation failed to disclose a narrator’s links to Hamas.
Hamas-led militants abducted 251 people and killed around 1,200, mostly civilians, in the October 7 2023 attack.