🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Breach of Broadcasting Rules, Says Ofcom The British broadcaster committed a "major breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the child of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom. An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "materially misleading". The BBC's director general had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness". The regulator has instructed the BBC to broadcast a peak-time declaration about its conclusions. "As this represents a major infringement of our regulations, we are instructing the broadcaster to air a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Undermine Trust' The authority's report declared: "Our investigation determined that the film's omission to reveal that the voice's father served in a position in the Hamas-controlled authority was significantly deceptive. "It meant that the audience did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the information he provided. "Confidence is at the heart of the bond between a media organization and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC. "This failing had the risk to undermine the significantly high amounts of confidence that viewers would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the Israel-Gaza war." The documentary was withdrawn from iPlayer in last February after the narrator's personal associations were revealed, and in the month of July an internal BBC review found it breached the organization's content policies on truthfulness. A BBC spokesperson stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the findings of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a major oversight in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on accuracy, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We have apologised for this and we agree with Ofcom's decision in complete. We will comply with the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."