🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Documentary Ruled a 'Serious' Breach of Media Regulations, Declares UK Media Regulator The public service broadcaster committed a "serious breach" of broadcasting rules by failing to disclose that the narrator of a film about Gaza was the son of a Hamas representative, according to British broadcasting authority Ofcom. An investigation by the broadcasting watchdog into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the documentary was "substantially inaccurate". The chief executive of the broadcaster had previously apologised, saying there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness". Ofcom has directed the broadcaster to air a peak-time declaration about its conclusions. "Since this amounts to a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the corporation to broadcast a statement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a schedule to be determined," the regulator stated. 'Risk to Erode Confidence' The regulator's statement declared: "The inquiry we conducted concluded that the documentary's omission to reveal that the presenter's parent held a position in the Hamas-controlled administration was significantly deceptive. "Consequently that the public did not have essential details which may have been very significant to their evaluation of the presenter and the information he presented. "Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its audience, notably for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This error had the potential to undermine the very considerable degrees of confidence that audiences would have invested in a documentary produced by the BBC about the conflict in Gaza." The programme was withdrawn from the online platform in February after the presenter's personal associations emerged, and in the month of July an corporation's own inquiry found it violated the broadcaster's journalistic standards on factual correctness. A corporation official stated: "The regulator's decision is in agreement with the results of Peter Johnston's review, that there was a significant failing in the film in relation to the broadcaster's journalistic policies on accuracy, which aligns with clause 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We have apologised for this and we accept the regulator's ruling in its entirety. We will adhere to the penalty as soon as the schedule and language are confirmed."