BBC Gaza Film Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Rules, Says Broadcasting Watchdog

The BBC was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by omitting to mention that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a significant failing in relation to truthfulness".

Ofcom has instructed the broadcaster to transmit a prime-time declaration about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Undermine Confidence'

The watchdog's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's lack of disclosure that the narrator's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the public did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the voice and the content he provided.

"Confidence is at the core of the relationship between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a state-funded media outlet such as the British Broadcasting Corporation.

"This oversight had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza."

The documentary was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections were revealed, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it infringed the broadcaster's editorial guidelines on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the conclusions of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects regulation 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We have apologised for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and language are finalised."