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, without the family’s knowledge.
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 as he stood outside the property.
The couple and their two young children only survived because their home’s door twisted and jammed when the attackers, who had been trying to capture them for ‘for hours’, tried to blow it out with explosives, she said.
She told the publication: ‘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.’
Horenstein described their house as ‘a battleground’, having been destroyed and declared uninhabitable, with the family only escaping by crawling out a window and running barefoot to their car.
She said she discovered the filmed report from inside their home ‘by chance’, which left the ‘already heartbroken’ family dealing with ‘yet another intrusion into our lives’.
‘Even in times of war there are limits, and when a media outlet crosses them, it must be held responsible,’ she added.
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.
Joaquin Floto, Middle East bureau chief for BBC News, wrote the apology in Hebrew, which expressed regret for the family’s ‘distress’ and called entering into their home ‘a good-faith mistake, as we believed consent had been given’.
‘The BBC had no intention to harm you or cause you discomfort,’ he added.
A BBC spokesperson told PA of the matter: ‘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.
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The conflict between Hamas and Israel subsequently became outright war before an increasingly fragile ceasefire in Gaza was agreed, the latest iteration of which was in October 2025.
The war has killed over 67,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government.
Experts and major rights groups have accused Israel of genocide, and the International Criminal Court is seeking the arrest of the country’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his former defence minister for using starvation as a method of war.
But Israel vehemently denies the allegations, saying it is waging a lawful war of self-defence and taking extraordinary measures to avoid harming civilians.
Hamas, in turn, portrayed the October 7 attack as a response to decades of Israeli land seizures, settlement construction and military occupation.
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