UK Regulator Finds BBC Gaza Film Violated Broadcast Rules

International - بین الاقوامی , Snippets , / Friday, October 17th, 2025

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Source: Xinhua
LONDON, October 17, 2025 – Britain’s media watchdog Ofcom ruled Friday that the BBC committed a “serious breach” of broadcasting standards by failing to disclose the identity of the narrator in a documentary about the Gaza conflict.
The program, titled “How to Survive a Warzone,” featured a 13-year-old boy as its narrator. Ofcom said the BBC did not inform viewers that the boy was the son of a Hamas official, a fact it deemed essential for maintaining editorial transparency and audience trust.
“The omission meant that viewers were deprived of important context that could have influenced their understanding of the film’s content,” Ofcom said in its ruling.
The regulator directed the BBC to issue a prime-time on-air statement acknowledging the breach, with the broadcast date yet to be decided.
The documentary was withdrawn from the BBC iPlayer platform in February after the narrator’s family background was revealed.
Since Israel began its military campaign in Gaza on October 7, 2023, nearly 68,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 170,000 injured, according to Gaza’s health authorities.