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

The BBC engaged in a "major breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as determined by British broadcasting authority Ofcom.

An probe by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading".

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

The authority has directed the corporation to air a peak-time declaration about its decisions.

"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the corporation to transmit a announcement of our findings against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be finalised," the statement read.

'Possibility to Undermine Confidence'

The authority's announcement stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the voice's father occupied a role in the Hamas-run government was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the public did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their judgment of the presenter and the content he provided.

"Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a television network and its public, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster.

"This oversight had the risk to erode the very considerable levels of confidence that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the Gaza conflict."

The film was removed from the online platform in last February after the presenter's family links emerged, and in this past July an corporation's own inquiry determined it infringed the corporation's editorial guidelines on accuracy.

A BBC spokesperson said: "The regulator's decision is in accordance with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code.

"We expressed regret for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in full. We will follow the directive as soon as the schedule and wording are determined."