BROADCASTING watchdog Ofcom has sanctioned the BBC for breaching the Broadcasting Code in its Gaza documentary after the corporation failed to disclose a narrator’s alleged links to Hamas.

Gaza: How To Survive A Warzone, produced by independent company Hoyo Films, was removed from BBC iPlayer in February after it emerged that the child narrator, Abdullah, is the son of Ayman Alyazouri, Gaza’s deputy minister of agriculture. 

Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007.

Ofcom concluded that the failure to disclose this information “was materially misleading” as it “had the potential to erode the very high levels of trust audiences would have expected in a BBC factual programme about the Israel-Gaza war.”

The regulator said the breach fell under rule 2.2 of the Broadcasting Code and ordered the BBC to broadcast the findings.

The BBC had already admitted “serious flaws” in the programme’s production and said Hoyo Films knew about the father’s position but failed to inform the broadcaster. 

The corporation said it accepted Ofcom’s decision “in full” and would comply with the sanction once finalised.

A Stop the War spokesperson told the Star: “Ofcom’s ruling was inevitable given the campaign by supporters of Israel, including the then Israeli ambassador to the UK, to have the documentary pulled. 

“But the real story remains not the original failure to identify the narrator or his family background, but the BBC’s decision to remove the programme.

“[This removal] not only undermined the broadcaster’s commitment to journalistic integrity but contributed to the continuing trend of the BBC suppressing the voices of all those seeking to expose the truth of Israel’s Gaza genocide.”