🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Breach of Broadcasting Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a programme about the Gaza conflict was the son of a Hamas administrator, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An inquiry by the media regulator into the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the programme was "materially misleading". The BBC's director general had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a serious error in relation to truthfulness". Ofcom has ordered the broadcaster to broadcast a evening announcement about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are directing the broadcaster to transmit a message of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," it said. 'Risk to Erode Confidence' The authority's report stated: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the film's lack of disclosure that the presenter's parent occupied a position in the Hamas-run authority was materially misleading. "It meant that the audience did not have critical information which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the voice and the information he shared. "Credibility is at the heart of the connection between a television network and its viewers, notably for a public service broadcaster such as the BBC. "This failing had the potential to erode the very considerable levels of confidence that viewers would have put in a factual film from the broadcaster about the Israel-Gaza war." The programme was removed from the BBC's streaming service in the month of February after the presenter's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment found it infringed the broadcaster's content policies on factual correctness. A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in line with the conclusions 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 aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We issued an apology for this and we accept Ofcom's decision in full. We will comply with the directive as soon as the timing and language are confirmed."