Kemi Badenoch has demanded to know if licence-fee cash was given to Hamas terrorists during the making of a controversial BBC documentary.

The Tory leader hit out at corporation boss Tim Davie over last week’s BBC2 film narrated by the son of a Hamas official.

In an excoriating letter, seen by the Daily Mail, Mrs Badenoch called for an inquiry into any ‘potential collusion with Hamas’ and ‘the possibility of payment’ to terrorists. 

The BBC could not answer her question last night, and is understood to be carrying out ‘further due diligence’ on how the programme was made.

Mrs Badenoch also said apparent bias in the BBC’s reporting of the conflict was not an ‘isolated incident’ and any review must root out the ‘systemic and institutional bias against Israel’. 

She even threatened to pull her party’s support for the licence fee if there wasn’t ‘serious action’, making clear that senior BBC executives should be part of any investigation.

Amid a political storm over its alleged anti-Israel bias, the corporation was forced to apologise after it emerged that Abdullah – the child narrator of Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone – was the son of Ayman Alyazouri, the deputy minister of Hamas’s agriculture ministry. 

The BBC initially tried to defend the programme, and pointed the finger at London-based production company Hoyo Films for not telling it about the Hamas link. 

However, the contract between the BBC and Hoyo suggests the corporation had direct and regular involvement, with one section reading: ‘We will address editorial compliance issues as they arise by having regular updates and phone calls with the commissioning editor.’

Another section, unearthed by The Mail on Sunday, said: ‘Permission will be sought from the parents’ guardians every time we film with them... The producers will act and work as we would in the UK.’

In her letter to Mr Davie, Mrs Badenoch said she was ‘shocked’ by the revelations, adding: ‘It is now clear to me that you should commission a full independent inquiry to consider this and wider allegations of systemic BBC bias against Israel.

‘It is well known that inside Gaza the influence of the proscribed terrorist organisation Hamas is pervasive.

‘How could any programme from there be commissioned, without comprehensive work by the BBC to ensure that presenters or participants were – as far as possible – not linked to that appalling regime? 

'Would the BBC be this naive if it was commissioning content from North Korea or the Islamic Republic of Iran?’

Mrs Badenoch said it was ‘profoundly troubling’ that initially the BBC defended the documentary as an ‘invaluable testament’ to the war.

She added: ‘Surely it should have been immediately apparent that the programme was fundamentally flawed? 

'Such an investigation must consider allegations of potential collusion with Hamas, and the possibility of payment to Hamas officials.’

She also called for the inquiry to address ‘repeated and serious allegations of systemic and institutional bias against Israel in the BBC’s coverage of the war’.

Mrs Badenoch said this included the practice of interviews ‘where Israeli interlocutors are robustly interrogated and Palestinian officials can speak with little challenge’. She concluded: ‘These are not isolated incidents... The BBC must recognise how serious these allegations are for its public standing.

‘The Conservative Party has supported the BBC in government, including through the current Charter which will end in 2027. I cannot see how my party could support the continuation of the current licence fee-based system without serious action.’

The BBC removed the programme from iPlayer only after 45 prominent Jewish figures from the TV, film and media sectors demanded it. 

The corporation then released a statement acknowledging the ‘family connections of the film’s narrator’. 

It added: ‘We’ve promised our audiences the highest standards of transparency, so it is only right that as a result of this new information, we add some more detail to the film before its re-transmission.’

It said the following text will be added: ‘The narrator of this film is 13-year-old Abdullah. His father has worked as a deputy agriculture minister for the Hamas-run government in Gaza.’

Israel’s deputy foreign minister told GB News that the documentary was ‘pure Hamas propaganda’. Sharren Haskel said: ‘This is absolutely outrageous. This is pure propaganda that is being promoted by the BBC – Hamas propaganda.

‘I mean, they surely knew about it. There is not a chance that they would film children for an extended period of time without knowing who their parents are.’

Last year, a Mail on Sunday investigation into the BBC’s coverage of the conflict revealed anti-Jewish posts made by several reporters, and unearthed anti-Semitic slurs by doctors quoted in a report which claimed Israeli troops tortured medics in Gaza.

It is understood that BBC executives will demand answers at a board meeting this week.

Caroline Dinenage, the Tory chairman of the culture committee, told the Telegraph that MPs will question BBC bosses over the documentary. Hoyo Films was contacted

for comment.