🔗 Share this article

The public service broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the voice of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the child of a Hamas administrator, according to regulatory body Ofcom.

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

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

The regulator has instructed the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its findings.

"Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 9pm, with a date to be determined," the statement read.

'Possibility to Damage Trust'

The authority's report stated: "Our probe determined that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent held a role in the Hamas-controlled administration was materially misleading.

"Consequently that the viewers did not have vital facts which may have been extremely pertinent to their judgment of the presenter and the information he provided.

"Credibility is at the center of the relationship between a broadcaster and its public, particularly for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC.

"This error had the possibility to damage the significantly high degrees of trust that audiences would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Gaza conflict."

The film was removed from iPlayer in February after the boy's familial connections emerged, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness.

A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in agreement with the results of the internal assessment, that there was a major oversight in the programme in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards.

"We issued an apology for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the schedule and language are determined."