BBC Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Serious' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a programme about Gaza was the child of a Hamas representative, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

An inquiry by the broadcasting watchdog into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate".

The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness".

The authority has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a peak-time statement about its conclusions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a announcement of our determinations against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be confirmed," it said.

'Risk to Erode Trust'

The regulator's report declared: "Our investigation found that the documentary's failure to disclose that the voice's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-controlled authority was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the audience did not have critical information which may have been very significant to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented.

"Confidence is at the center of the connection between a television network and its public, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC.

"This oversight had the possibility to undermine the very considerable degrees of credibility that the public would have invested in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was removed from the online platform in February after the narrator's family links were revealed, and in July an internal BBC review concluded it violated the organization's content policies on factual correctness.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the directive as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."