British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Film Considered a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Says Broadcasting Watchdog

The British broadcaster committed a "significant breach" of industry standards by omitting to mention that the presenter of a documentary about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, according to UK media regulator Ofcom.

An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the programme was "substantially inaccurate".

The BBC's director general had previously apologised, stating there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy".

The authority has ordered the corporation to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its findings.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are ordering the broadcaster to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be confirmed," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'

The regulator's statement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father held a role in the Hamas-run administration was substantially inaccurate.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the details he presented.

"Confidence is at the center of the relationship between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.

"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have invested in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war."

The film was pulled from the BBC's streaming service in February after the boy's personal associations emerged, and in July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the corporation's editorial guidelines on factual correctness.

A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, 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 expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the date and language are determined."