🔗 Share this article BBC Gaza Programme Ruled a 'Major' Violation of Media Rules, Declares Ofcom The British broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by failing to disclose that the voice of a documentary about the Gaza conflict was the offspring of a Hamas administrator, as determined by UK media regulator Ofcom. An investigation by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the documentary was "materially misleading". The head of the BBC had previously apologised, noting there had been "a major oversight in relation to accuracy". Ofcom has directed the BBC to broadcast a evening statement about its decisions. "Given this constitutes a serious breach of our regulations, we are instructing the BBC to broadcast a statement of our conclusions against it on BBC Two at nine o'clock in the evening, with a date to be determined," the statement read. 'Risk to Erode Trust' The watchdog's report said: "Our investigation concluded that the documentary's lack of disclosure that the presenter's father held a post in the Hamas-administered government was significantly deceptive. "This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their evaluation of the presenter and the content he provided. "Confidence is at the center of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, particularly for a national broadcasting corporation such as the public broadcaster. "This oversight had the risk to undermine the significantly high levels of credibility that viewers would have placed in a factual film from the broadcaster about the conflict in Gaza." The film was pulled from the online platform in last February after the narrator's family links came to light, and in July an broadcaster's internal assessment concluded it infringed the corporation's journalistic standards on truthfulness. A corporation official stated: "The authority's determination is in accordance with the findings of the internal assessment, that there was a significant failing in the documentary in relation to the BBC's Editorial Guidelines on truthfulness, which aligns with Rule 2.2 of Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. "We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in its entirety. We will follow the penalty as soon as the date and wording are confirmed."