🔗 Share this article British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Considered a 'Significant' Infringement of Media Regulations, Declares Ofcom The British broadcaster engaged in a "serious breach" of industry standards by failing to disclose that the presenter of a documentary about Gaza was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by UK media regulator Ofcom. An inquiry by Ofcom into the documentary titled Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has found that the film was "materially misleading". The head of the BBC had previously apologised, stating there had been "a significant failing in relation to factual correctness". The authority has directed the corporation to transmit a peak-time declaration about its conclusions. "Given this constitutes a significant violation of our code, we are directing the BBC to air a message of our determinations against it on the BBC's second channel at nine o'clock in the evening, with a timing to be determined," the statement read. 'Risk to Damage Confidence' The regulator's report said: "Our probe found that the programme's omission to reveal that the narrator's male guardian served in a role in the Hamas-administered administration was substantially inaccurate. "This implied that the public did not have essential details which may have been extremely pertinent to their assessment of the presenter and the content he presented. "Confidence is at the heart of the relationship between a media organization and its audience, notably for a state-funded media outlet such as the BBC. "This oversight had the risk to undermine the exceptionally strong levels of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza." The film was pulled from iPlayer in February after the boy's personal associations came to light, and in the month of July an broadcaster's internal assessment determined it violated the corporation's content policies on truthfulness. A representative for the broadcaster commented: "The Ofcom ruling is in accordance with the findings of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the film in relation to the corporation's content standards on truthfulness, which aligns with regulation 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations. "We expressed regret for this and we comply with Ofcom's decision in full. We will follow the sanction as soon as the timing and wording are confirmed."