🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Broadcasting Watchdog The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a film about Gaza was the child of a Hamas official, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by Ofcom into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has determined that the documentary was "materially misleading". The head of the BBC had earlier expressed regret, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to truthfulness". The authority has ordered the BBC to broadcast a peak-time announcement about its findings. "Since this amounts to a serious breach of our rules, we are instructing the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 9pm, with a date to be finalised," the statement read. 'Potential to Erode Trust' The authority's announcement stated: "Our investigation found that the documentary's omission to reveal that the narrator's father occupied a position in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive. "It meant that the audience did not have vital facts which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the details he shared. "Trust is at the heart of the connection between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC. "This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable degrees of trust that audiences would have put in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza." The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the narrator's familial connections emerged, and in July an internal BBC review determined it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness. A BBC spokesperson said: "The Ofcom ruling is in agreement with the results of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on truthfulness, which reflects Rule 2.2 of the regulator's media standards. "We expressed regret for this and we agree with the authority's determination in complete. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are determined."