It has not been a happy week for the BBC. The corporation has spent the last four days grappling with the fall out from Lord Dyson’s damning report into the Martin Bashir affair and Prince William’s angry response. Now a fresh controversy has blown up in the BBC Monitoring unit.

Digital journalist Tala Halawa has been closely involved in the Beeb’s recent coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, providing additional reporting in a piece on children who have died and fronting a video about the model Bella Hadid’s views on the issue. Halawa is the Palestine Specialist in BBC Monitoring, specialising in Palestinian affairs and reporting for BBC services such as the Arabic website and the BBC World Service. All of these services are supposed to subscribe to the BBC’s rules on impartiality and rigorous journalism.