British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Broadcasting Regulations, States Broadcasting Watchdog

The BBC engaged in a "significant breach" of broadcasting rules by omitting to mention that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom.

An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "significantly deceptive".

The chief executive of the broadcaster had earlier expressed regret, stating there had been "a serious error in relation to factual correctness".

Ofcom has directed the corporation to broadcast a peak-time statement about its findings.

"As this represents a significant violation of our regulations, we are ordering the BBC to broadcast a statement of our determinations against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a timing to be finalised," the regulator stated.

'Potential to Erode Credibility'

The authority's report stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's failure to disclose that the presenter's parent held a post in the Hamas-controlled government was significantly deceptive.

"This implied that the public did not have vital facts which may have been highly relevant 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, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This failing had the risk to damage the very considerable levels of credibility that the public would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Gaza conflict."

The documentary was pulled from iPlayer in last February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness.

A representative for the broadcaster said: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a serious error in the documentary in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which reflects clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We have apologised for this and we accept the authority's determination in complete. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."