The BBC’s director-general was grilled heavily by MPs on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee on Tuesday about the broadcaster’s coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Labour MP Paul Waugh pressed Davie on whether the BBC was “over-cautious” in deciding not to air Gaza: Doctors Under Attack earlier this year after commissioning the programme from independent production company Basement Films. 

The documentary was subsequently aired by Channel 4 despite the BBC claiming it would have created “a perception of partiality that would not meet the high standards that the public rightly expect.” 

In responding to Waugh asking if the BBC was over-cautious, Davie said: “No. I think we made the right decision.”

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He went on: “I take your feedback if you think we’re being too cautious but my view and the view of the news leadership is we clearly had someone with a position [on the documentary] and we needed a narrator that was a BBC journalist making sure we weren’t open to that [accusations of impartiality], otherwise we could be in the same old problem and bluntly, I know this is frustrating filmmakers, our intent is good, but if they wanted to air the film, as they put it, Channel 4 can do that.”

The one-off documentary included witness accounts from frontline Palestinian health workers in Gaza. 

It was “fact-checked and compiled by Channel 4 to ensure it meets Channel 4 editorial standards and the Ofcom broadcasting code”, an announcement by the broadcaster said when it was aired. 

Earlier in the session, Davie said the BBC may also never air another documentary that led to criticism for the broadcaster.

Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was taken off iPlayer in February after it emerged that the child narrator, Abdullah, was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, who has worked as Hamas’s deputy minister of agriculture.

It was found to have breached editorial guidelines on accuracy because it failed to disclose the connection, but a review added there was nothing “in the narrator’s scripted contribution to the programme [that] breached the BBC’s standards on due impartiality”.

BBC bosses had said they would look at ways the programme could be edited and aired again, but Davie revealed to the committee it may not ever be broadcast.

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He told MPs: “We don’t know whether we can air it. I will tell you why, it’s to do with consent, going back, doing all the footage on the rushes. The team are looking at it, but I can’t guarantee that we’re going to air anything.”

An intense grilling by Labour MP Rupa Huq followed in which she raised concerns about the BBC being “fearful” in its coverage of Gaza.

She said: “It does feel like you’re bowing to some sort of pressure with this war. It’s being reported very differently to say the Ukraine war. Why are you so fearful?”

Davie replied: “I don’t think we’re fearful.

“I want to defend the newsroom and journalists, I don’t think they’re shaped by fear. And I don’t think they’re shaped by individual bits of lobbying.

“What they are shaped by is our editorial guidelines.

“I have to decide, with the news team, do we think, if we air the film, is it seen as an impartial piece of work, and we had an issue.”