Phil Craig claimed a 'new, more radical generation' had taken over, suggesting the broadcaster had hired staff with 'partisan views'.

Mr Craig, who spent two decades there before moving on to Discovery Networks International and Australian broadcaster ABC, suggested output from the BBC was 'insufficiently policed'.

Speaking at the Battle of Ideas festival last Saturday, the TV veteran said: 'I'm afraid as I saw what played out in Gaza, my career-long faith in the BBC just ebbed away. In its fairness and objectivity.'

Mr Craig added at the discussion and debate event in Westminster: 'Of course, news makes mistakes. We all know news coverage, it can be faulted. There are wars, people spin them, both sides spin, and there's propaganda.

'But all the mistakes in this particular war seem to be in the same direction. Mistakes of hiring people with incredibly partisan views or maybe even hiring people who were actually part of Hamas. The most outrageous of all, the October hospital moment.'

Mr Craig was referring to the criticism the BBC faced for its coverage of an explosion at the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza, when a correspondent said that the Israelis had been contacted and were investigating, but added: 'It's hard to see what else this could be really given the size of the explosion other than an Israeli air strike or several air strikes'.

Western intelligence agencies later concluded that a misfired rocket from the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from within Gaza was to blame.

The BBC apologised, admitting that 'even in this fast-moving situation it was wrong to speculate in this way about the possible causes'.

Mr Craig said: 'It really worried me. I suspect the thing that caused all this is group-think. It's a new generation, perhaps, a new, more radical generation, young people, activists, people insufficiently policed, insufficiently guided, old principles not being enforced in the way they have been on us.'

Mr Craig joined the BBC's trainee scheme in 1982, aged 23, rising to become a senior producer on Public Eye and Panorama before leaving to work for Brook Lapping. As an independent producer co-running the London-based firm he made numerous programmes for the BBC.

Recalling his production company's work on a documentary for the broadcaster in 1998, titled: The Fifty Years War: Israel and the Arabs, Mr Craig said they had been held to 'super high standards' of balance and fairness.

He later told The Telegraph he had watched the BBC's coverage of the alleged hospital strike with 'mounting alarm and dismay, and noted how it helped fan fires all around the world, including literal fires at synagogues'.

He added: 'Anyone who has ever worked for the corporation's news operation knows its global influence, and in this case it was deployed in entirely the wrong way.'

Mr Trump is suing the BBC over the editing of a Trump speech in a 2024 Panorama documentary.

Last week a US judge ordered the US President to answer questions under oath in his defamation lawsuit by December 11.

A BBC spokesman said: 'The BBC is fully committed to reporting the Israel-Gaza war impartially, with no agenda and to the highest standards of journalism.

'We have delivered comprehensive coverage of the conflict with breaking news, ongoing updates on developments and in-depth analysis. BBC News has a duty to our audiences to provide a range of perspectives on the conflict.

'When mistakes are made, we are transparent and accountable in acknowledging them and making corrections.'